


Another Chance

by Lemmerman



Series: Love, Obscured By Darkness [3]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Gen, Multi, Spoilers, Teen Wolf Season 6 Spoilers, Teen wolf spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-31
Updated: 2017-10-18
Packaged: 2018-09-13 19:03:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 18
Words: 96,855
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9137320
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lemmerman/pseuds/Lemmerman
Summary: Set during the events of Season 6, this is the final instalment of Love, Obscured By Darkness.Theo is gone, dragged down to Hell during the climactic events of the battle with the Beast and the Dread Doctors. But the reader isn't about to give up on him just yet. When the mystery of the Ghost Riders calls Theo back from beyond, will he still be the man that the reader loves? Or have his experiences below changed him into someone new?





	1. The Missing

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Set during the events of Teen Wolf 6x05: Radio Silence

By this point, you’ve resigned yourself to the fact that you’re never going to have a normal year at Beacon Hills. Senior Year has decided to be the absolute worst so that you never forget the insanity you’ve been through at this high school, before releasing you out into this damn cursed town to live the rest of your life.

All those colleges outside of Beacon Hills are looking very appealing right now.

Not content with throwing Dread Doctors and The Beast of Gevaudan against you and your friends, Senior Year has also managed to herald the arrival of the Ghost Riders, supernatural cowboys that literally erase everyone who sees them from existence.

And making it worse of course, is the fact that you have face all of this alone.

Well, not strictly alone. If anything, you have more people around you now than you ever have before. Scott, Lydia, and Malia are always there for you, have always been there for you. You can see Liam’s own mini-pack springing up around him in the form of Hayden, Mason, and Corey. 

And that’s without taking into consideration all of the adult help you and the pack are now getting. Between Sheriff Stilinski and Scott’s mom Melissa, plus the elusive Chris Argent who seemed to come and go like a Ghost Rider himself, and even Lydia’s mom who tries to help in her own misguided way, your support network is better equipped to deal with the Ghost Riders than you’d ever have hoped when all of this supernatural stuff started happening to you in the first place.

But even with all these people, you’re still missing the one person who would make it all better.

Unfortunately, everyone else is busy dealing with the other person who’s decided to conveniently go missing – Stiles.

It’s peculiar, like a hole in your memories where someone should be. It’s almost like when you look at photographs of the pack; there seems to be an incongruous space where someone used to be, but isn’t any more. A section of your memories that has been sliced out with a scalpel and removed, thrown away somewhere you can’t ever find it again.

Of course, that hasn’t stopped you all from trying. A reckless visit to Sheriff Stilinski’s father in his nursing home, Lydia’s madcap attempt to pull down Claudia Stilinski’s wallpaper, and now this magically appearing Jeep in the school parking lot that feels so familiar, and yet you’d swear you’ve never seen it before.

Compared to the turmoil in your heart however, the missing memories of Stiles are almost a blessing. You can’t remember him, so you can justify not feeling sad that he’s not there. You’re almost like Malia in that respect; the evidence is circumstantial, almost to the point where you could argue Stiles was made up. But the Ghost Riders existence, and the pure-hearted insistence from Scott and Lydia reinforces the fact that he does exist. And he needs your help, wherever he is.

But he’s not the only one.

You can feel it, deep in your heart. You know that wherever Theo is right now, he’s in pain. Some of it justified. Most of it, not. Your mind casts back to the vision you had deep underneath the water treatment plant more and more these days, the reassuring look Theo gave you as he promised that you’d see him again soon.

But soon is relative. And every day that you’re without him makes you worry for his safety. It’s not like with Stiles; you can remember Theo, all the time you spent together, the love that fought against Theo’s dark nature to become something truly special, even if he relapsed right at the end.

You would find him again. You would see that smirk, and the smile he reserved only for you. You would hold each other in your arms, and no Ghost Riders would be able to tear you apart. He had all but promised this the last time you’d seen him.

But not yet, apparently.

You daren’t bring the idea of helping Theo to your friends. Their pinpoint focus on recovering Stiles, combined with how they must feel about Theo in general would only serve to irritate them and push you all apart. Pack dynamics were on the fritz already with Stiles’ disappearance; you couldn’t afford to force the issue any further. You may have loved Theo, but you weren’t about to jeopardise your relationship with your friends for him - not again.

You’d done that before. Spent more time with Theo and his pack than your own, and it had almost broken you in two. There was room in your life for him and the others. But you had to make sure the balance was right this time.

Your heart is a yin and yang symbol, light and darkness struggling for dominance and the seeds of each inside the other. Theo’s struggle between light and dark, good and evil, selflessness and self-interest. Your friends unerring light that is sometimes marred by having to do the wrong thing in order to save the day. It all blended together in one marble of white and black, heavy in your chest and a constant reminder of all you have, all you have lost, and all you stand to lose still.

Theo needs you. But so do your friends. And so, you sit inside the familiar-yet-alien jeep in the middle of the school parking lot, squashed up in the back seat while Scott and Lydia are in the front, playing around with the police scanner in a vain search for someone you know existed, but might not exist any more.

And as your mind wanders away from Stiles to Theo once again, the radio sputters to life, a voice as familiar and alien as the Jeep in which you sit echoing out into the silence between the three of you.

_'Hello? Is anyone there? Can anyone hear me?'_

The three of you exchange incredulous looks - it’s him. He’s real. Stiles is real.

Lydia grabs the receiver and pulls it towards her before you or Scott can react. 'Stiles?' she whispers, scared that you’re all having some kind of joint hallucination.

'Stiles, are you there?' Scott asks, the desperation in his voice evident in every word. You’re too dumbstruck to add anything, too worried that it’s all a hoax. If living in Beacon Hills had taught you anything, it was that the world was cruel enough to do that to you all.

_'Scott? Lydia? Is that you?'_

Lydia rests the radio receiver on her forehead, relief etched into every line of her face. The next time she speaks, it’s with equal parts joy and incredulity. Next to her, Scott bites his lower lip in anticipation. ’Oh my god, Stiles. We can hear you!’

_'Oh my god, you know me? You remember me?'_

'Stiles, is thi... is this you? Is this actually you?' You can understand the scepticism in Lydia’s voice; her Banshee hallucinations and visions, from what she’s told you before, are sometimes so lifelike that she can’t tell them apart from the real world. But you and Scott are both there - you’re all experiencing this together.

_'Yeah. Listen to me... do you remember the last thing I said to you?'_

Lydia again looks back at you and Scott, almost embarrassed to answer him. But the question seems to ground her, to have let her accept that this is in fact real. 'You said... you said, 'Remember I love you',’ she whispers.

The radio is silent after she answers; is Stiles happy that she remembers? Glad that someone is still looking for him? You can’t tell anything from this end. You hope that hearing their voices is enough to keep him going, whatever he’s going through.

‘Are you okay?’ Scott asks the radio, always concerned with others over himself. 

Lydia joins in with a hurried ‘Where are you?’

‘We're coming to get you!’ Scott reassures him. Still, you can’t seem to think of anything to add. It’s all too much to take in right now. Just hearing a voice that you thought you’d never hear again, that you didn’t think you’d ever heard before is blowing your mind.

_'No, no, no. You can't. You won't be able to find me.'_

Scott’s face drops alongside your stomach. What is Stiles talking about? Now that you know he exists, he can’t think that you wouldn’t want to come and rescue him? Scott takes the receiver from Lydia, gripping it tightly in both hands as if it were Stiles himself as he pleads: ‘Stiles, what... what are you talking about? Just tell us where you are, and we'll, we'll come and…’

_'Right, just remember this. Canaan, okay? You have to find Canaan. Just find Canaan.'_

Stiles is talking in riddles. What is he on about? Why won’t he let you come and rescue him? You notice a tear on Lydia’s cheek as she nods resignedly along with Stiles’ message. Then the radio crackles, and you know that he’s gone again.

'Stiles! Stiles!' Scott shouts, pressing any and all the buttons he can get his hands on. Lydia is rocking silently, more tears joining the one still on her cheek. And then all you can hear is static, and the ghost of the conversation reverberating around the Jeep. Stiles’ Jeep. Roscoe. The memory is coming back, and you know without a doubt, no matter what anyone else would try and tell you, Stiles was real. Is real. And he needs your help. 

Looks like Theo would have to wait a while longer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Considering Theo's not in the first five episodes of Season 6, I felt it easier to write a chapter like this that brings everything up to speed rather than five chapters of pining over the fact he's not around. Since he's due to reappear in episode 6, now seemed like a good time to get back on track!
> 
> The title isn't final yet; once I have more of an idea of Theo's arc post-resurrection, it will probably change.


	2. The Return

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (Set during the events of Teen Wolf 06x06: Ghosted)

'I feel like every time you guys go off on an adventure, you leave me here to babysit,' you tell Scott in no uncertain terms. 'Is it really Liam you don’t trust, or is it me?'

Scott looks hurt, and you immediately feel bad for suspecting him of ill intent. As if he has a bad bone in his body. You’re standing on the school steps, and the bell is due to ring any minute, so you hasten to apologise. 

'Sorry Scott, that came out wrong. I didn’t mean it like that. I just feel kind of helpless right now, even more than usual. And now that we’ve got a solid lead on Stiles, it seems like we should all be going.'

He shrugs lightly, but the darkness of your accusation still seems to weigh on his brow. 'I think we’re all feeling a little helpless. The Ghost Riders aren’t like anything we’ve fought before; there doesn’t seem to be any way to stop them, and I don’t know about you, but that’s scary as hell to me. I’m not trying to sideline you. And it’s not that I don’t trust Liam, either. I just think that we should have one of the older pack members still here to keep an eye on things. It’s not because I don’t trust you - it’s because I do.'

Your heart swells at his praise, and you feel even worse about accusing him of thinking badly of you now. Not that he’d hold it against you. He’s Scott McCall; grudges aren’t a thing that exist in his mind. 

'Alright, I get it. I should know better than to doubt you. Be careful. You don’t know what you’re going to find in Canaan.' 

'It’s what we’re not going to find that worries me more,' he admits. 'What Lydia saw...if that’s what Beacon Hills is going to become if we can’t stop the Ghost Riders…'

'Don’t think like that. We’ve beaten everything that this town has thrown at us; some dudes on horses should be scared of us, not the other way around.' You wish your voice sounded more confident, but voicing the sentiment is difficult enough, let alone actually believing it. It seems to be enough for Scott that you said it though, because he smiles in gratitude.

'You be careful too. We should be home by tonight; we’ll all meet at my house and we’ll tell you what we found. Don’t let Liam do anything stupid.'

'As if he would,' you say with a wry smile, not believing that for a second either.

Scott turns to go, descending the school steps towards the sidewalk where Lydia and Malia are waiting for him. The car speeds away and you stand and watch it go, disappearing around a corner and into yet another unknown. 

****

*****

So much for not letting Liam do anything stupid. You’d found him and Hayden after school, coming out of the basement. When you’d questioned them and found out what they intended to do, you didn’t know how to feel. Now, trudging through the tunnels of the water treatment facility yet again, you’re still not sure.

Their plan to capture a Ghost Rider is insane. Surely they can’t expect that to work. Even with Mr Douglas’ science on your side (and his speedy acceptance of the supernatural is a whole other conversation you need to have), going up against a Ghost Rider without the rest of the pack is a terrible idea. And if they’re wrong, and it all goes sideways, you’ll be next on the Ghost Riders’ list of people to kidnap.

And yet, here you are, walking alongside them as they purposefully march along the tunnels towards…

You tell yourself that you’re going along with this because it’s the best plan you’ve got. Because the longer you wait, the more people the Ghost Riders will take. This isn’t a completely insane idea. There is merit to it. You’re not just going along with it because it means you’ll get to see him again…

'Almost there. Last chance to bail,' Hayden says, her tone of voice implying that she seriously doubts Liam’s sanity as much as you do.

'If we're gonna stand a chance, we have to do something drastic,' Liam shoots back.

Hayden’s eyes widen in disbelief, but she’s still walking along so she can’t be completely against the plan. Unless she’s only here because she loves Liam, the same way you’re only here because you love… 'There's drastic and then there's this,' she says, breaking the end of your thought off like an icicle, sheared away before it can be fully formed.

'I know, it's not the perfect plan. But we need the bad part of the plan to make the good part work,' Liam reminds her. You walk along behind them silently, trying to remain aloof and unattached, like you’re their chaperone and not the person who wants this plan to succeed more than either of them.

'You think she knows it's a bad plan?' Hayden asks as the three of you round the final corner to the hallway you know almost like the back of your own hand. A woman stands at the end of it, her foot inches away from the crack in the floor that haunts your dreams. The crack that holds him.

'Anyone would know this is a bad plan,' says Noshiko, unfurling Kira’s katana from her hand dramatically. 'Which is why I have to ask you one more time, are you sure you don't want to change your minds?'

You flinch away from the sight of the sword, and all that it represents to you. Liam however approaches carefully, hands outstretched in a placating gesture, as if he thinks Noshiko might attack him with the katana if he answers wrongly. 'We don't know what else to do. It's like the Ghost Riders are unstoppable,' he tells her.

'They are unstoppable,' she confirms.' They have been riding the storm and taking souls since long before I was born.' You let the weight of that sentence fall over you. Considering how old Noshiko is, that means a hell of a lot. And in all that time, she’s never come across anything that could help you…

'Yeah, we won't survive them. Not without your help,' Liam replies emphatically, getting even closer. Hayden hangs back just behind him, and you bring up the rear, off to one side. This is a conversation for the supernatural creatures of Beacon Hills to have - you’re only an observer right now.

Noshiko’s face remains unreadable as she tells Liam: 'Kira entrusted me with her sword while she's with the Skinwalkers. And now, I'm trusting you because I believe she would want me to. Do not mistake this for me agreeing with your decision.' There’s steel in her voice to match the steel in her hand.

'I understand,' Liam says with finality, and in that moment you glimpse the alpha that Liam could potentially become one day. You can’t see his face from this angle, but from the sound of his voice, the fact that he’s ready to accept whatever happens - Scott has taught him well, you think.

Noshiko holds the sword out towards Liam, but he seems reluctant to take it, understandably. He indicates behind her and tells her: 'Kira just stabbed her sword into the ground.'

But Noshiko is having none of it. 'If you want to do this, you'll have to do it yourself.' She bows her head, and Liam awkwardly mirrors her, taking the katana in both hands. He steps around her and holds the blade point downwards, ready to stab it into the ground.

Noshiko turns away for a second, her piercing eyes looking right through you. 'And you,' she says, 'I know what he meant to you. Kira told me how much you loved him. How much she regretted taking him away from you.' 

You’re taken aback; you didn’t think Kira had even considered what sending him away would do to you, but it must have played on her mind more than you thought. It makes your heart ache with even more sadness, knowing that you might never see her again, never get to explain. But one thing at a time. There’s only enough room in your heart to miss one person right now.

'This is not something you should undertake lightly. Even to rescue the one you love,' she finishes gravely. 'I know that someone as old as I has no place telling you that you will find love again, but it is true. Pining for the ones you have lost should not stop you from living your life.'

'I can’t live my life without him. It sounds cliché and obsessive and awful, but it’s true. When he went down there, it was like a part of me went with him, and I need to get him back to feel whole again. Things will be different this time. I can get through to him. I got through to him before,' you tell her, Liam and Hayden looking to you as you answer. This may be their plan, but they’re doing it with your permission, with your help, even if you want to pretend otherwise.

'So be it. Once it is done, whatever happens next will be your responsibility.'

With that she leaves, for what could be the last time. You truly are on your own.

Liam steps forward, taking up the same position Kira had filled weeks ago. He raises the sword above his head, first unsure and then more confidently as he grips the katana’s hilt in both hands. Hayden joins him, seemingly unconsciously. You’re too scared to move - what if this doesn’t work? What if he’s not down there anymore? What if he’s changed?

'Liam, wait!' she shouts but he’s already driving Kira’s katana into the ground, mirroring her movements as she cracked the tunnel floor in two, setting in motion the events that took the one you love away from you.

It’s like you’re reliving the scene all over again. The blade sinks into the ground as if it were nothing at all, blue electricity crackling along its length as a fissure extends outwards.

Only this time, the fissure doesn’t open of its own accord. The ground doesn’t crack into a seemingly bottomless dark hole, no soaking wet girl emerges. Instead, a fist punches through the stone, flicking out into familiar claws. Liam and Hayden instinctively take a step back, but you’re doing the opposite, walking towards the hand as if you can grab hold of it and pull him back into this world yourself, like you wanted to in all of those nightmares you lived through in his absence, all worries gone from your head.

He’s coming. He’s nearly here. He’s coming back to you, just like he said he would.

Two hands, claws out, grip the ground’s edge, pulling the figure of a chimera from the darkness below. He tears himself free of the hole, slowly getting to his feet. Debris from the ground scatters from his face and clothes, leaving a fine mist drifting around him in the air.

And there he stands, coated in dirt and grime but otherwise no worse for wear as far as you can tell at a glance. He looks exactly as you remember him, glorious and gorgeous even now. His eyes blaze dark yellow, and his fangs are extended as he growls at the three of you.

The man you love is back, finally free from Hell.

Theo Raeken has returned.

Liam inches towards him, unsure of how he will react. The sword is still clamped tight in his hand, but it’s not raised, there’s no threat to his posture. 

Unfortunately, Theo doesn’t seem to care. He dashes forward, ramming Liam against the wall, pinning him there. Seeing the two of them together, you’re suddenly aware of how much bigger and stronger Theo is compared to Liam. The little beta really doesn’t stand a chance.

Luckily, Hayden moves quicker than you do. 'Theo! We're not trying to hurt you,' she tells him quickly before he can hurt Liam in turn. His eyes dart around to her, filled with confusion and panic. You’ve never seen him like this before; he’s almost feral. 'We're the ones that brought you back,' she finishes.

You’re not sure if it works. You’re not sure if he even hears her. Instead, he turns back to Liam, slamming him against the wall, hard. 'Where’s my sister?' he spits from behind gritted teeth. 

'Your sister’s dead,' Liam gasps, his throat constricted by Theo’s arm. Theo growls, deep in his throat, an unspoken threat. 'She died a long time ago.'

'You killed her, remember?' Hayden says, and she fixes him with a stare that would pin a lesser man to the wall. That’s probably not the best thing to remind him of right now, you think, but you’re not being much use either. You’re in total shock, seeing the state of him, how he’s reacting to all this, and you don’t know what to do, what would help make it easier, what would save your friends.

'I’m gonna kill you, too. I’m gonna kill all of you!' Theo roars, turning his scowling face back to Liam. 

'Even me?' you hear your voice ask, although you don’t remember your brain telling it to. 

Theo looks back, seeing you for the first time. His grip on Liam weakens, and his eyes soften, no longer wild and angry, but a shade of the Theo you once knew. The Theo only you knew. He whispers your name, and it makes your heart burst to hear it on his lips once again.

'Okay, send him back!' Hayden says, breaking the moment. Her voice is surprisingly strong; you make a note to never underestimate her. She may not be physically strong when compared to the other supernatural members of your pack, but she’s definitely got an edge to her that you haven’t noticed before.

Liam wrenches his arm free, showing Theo the katana still gripped in his hand. 'You know what this does?' he asks, and Theo’s face morphs from threatening to unsure in microseconds. It’s as if all of the anger he has pent up transforms into fear, and he releases Liam reluctantly, looking almost ashamed of himself.

You physically ache, you want to cross the gap between you and take him in your arms, hold him tight and tell him that everything is going to be fine. But you can’t. Not yet.

'We need your power to help us,' Liam informs him. 'Then you can kill whoever you want. But if you do kill us, you're gonna end up worse off than ever.'

Theo looks down at the katana once more, then back to Liam. The voice he uses to respond is drenched in sorrow and regret, and a deep-seated urge to never experience what he has experienced ever again.'There's nothing worse than what I've been through.'

Liam takes his reduced threat level as a sign that Theo is willing to cooperate. 'You ever hear about the Ghost Riders?' he asks, and Theo’s eyes dart around once more.

'Yeah. Yeah, I have,' he informs you all.

'Good. Then let’s go. You’re going to help us catch one.'

****

*****

Theo stares at the lightning rod apprehensively. The four of you, now joined by Mr. Douglas, crowd around the machinery as he looks it up and down. 'What makes you think this is gonna work?' he asks, and the skepticism in his voice mirrors your own, hiding unvocalized in your mind.

But Liam is adamant. 'You took Josh's power. You can do it,' he insists.

Theo looks at the cable dangling down in front of him once more, catching your eye across the circle of people. You try your best to give him an encouraging smile, but it probably looks like you’re in pain. Because of course the first thing you want him to do now that he’s free is potentially electrocute himself to death. Whatever happens, he knows he’s trapped, and so reluctantly wraps his hand around the exposed wire.

The air is filled with a dull hum as Mr. Douglas clicks the machine into life. 'Here we go,' the enigmatic science teacher says, and you hold your breath without meaning to, willing Liam’s plan to work, scared that if it doesn’t, they’ll send Theo back down into that hole and take him away from you once more. 

That would be far too cruel, to have him back and then lose him again. You don’t think you’d survive that. Not after having lost him once before.

The cable sparks and Theo explodes back down the corridor, propelled by the force of the electricity. He slides to a halt, flat on his back, and you’re instantly at his side.

'Oh my god, are you alright?' you ask him, and for the first time in god knows how long, just for a second, you two are alone. Despite the angry snarl on his face, which relents as you lock eyes, despite the electricity that jumps between your fingertips as you rest your hand on his chest, despite everything that has happened to him, this is the moment when you realise. 

He’s really back. You can feel his heart beating under your touch, feel the strength in his chest and the recognition in his eyes. He’s come back to you, and you’re not letting Liam send him back again.

Unfortunately, Liam breaks through your moment of reconnection with an abrupt 'Hey, what the hell?'

'That was only one billion joules,' you hear Mr. Douglas complain as you slowly help Theo back to his feet. He’s visibly winded, as if he hadn’t absorbed any of the electricity at all. 

'Only?' he snaps, and you support him as best you can, one of his arms slung over your shoulder. As soon as he’s upright again however, he shrugs you off. Your first reaction is hurt, but you realise as he walks back to join the others that he’s just trying to look strong, when weakness would be much easier to fall into. 

'Well, I'm fine, by the way. Thank you for your concern,' Theo informs them sarcastically, throwing his arms out wide. 

Liam’s eyes narrow in accusation. 'You don't have Josh's power anymore, do you?' 

Hayden steps up to him and wrenches Theo’s hand up, examining his claws which must have extended as part of a reflex triggered by the electricity. 'Or Tracy's,' she confirms, as Theo snatches his hand back. You can’t tell if he’s ashamed at losing his power, or just angry at being catapulted along a corridor after being dragged out of Hell.

'Guess I'm back to Classic Theo.' 

Nothing wrong with that, your brain adds, but you know without a doubt that that’s definitely not the right thing to say, so you keep quiet, again.

'Maybe you should try some remorse, since you killed them for their powers,' Liam retorts, and that puts Theo on the back foot again. 

You can see his face tighten with anger, as he snaps: 'I just put them back the way I found them.'

This is not going well at all.

That last line really hits home with Hayden; she died at the Dread Doctors’ hand, and it was only Theo’s intervention that brought her back. Him throwing all of that back in her face doesn’t sit well. 'Okay. Send him back,' she tells Liam again, who seems all too happy to oblige, readjusting the katana in his hand as if he’s about to-

'No, wait!' you shout, more than a hint of desperation in your voice. 'Wait, please! You don’t have to do this. He can help, I know he can. Okay, so he can’t conduct the electricity. But he might know something else, anything else. Right, Theo?' You whirl on him, giving him your most pleading look. If Liam wants to send him back, you don’t know if you’ll be able to stop him; you know you’ll try, but against any kind of supernatural power, a human like you will never win. Theo looks panicked once more, and not for the first time you wonder what exactly he had to live through down in the hole. Down in Hell.

'I know about the Wild Hunt from the Dread Doctors,' he gabbles quickly. 'I also know about things I'm betting you don't.' This last line seems to aimed at Mr. Douglas, who has remained almost as quiet as you. Whatever this means, it spurs him into action.

'I'm with Ms. Romero on this one. Send him back.' 

If Theo’s eyes were any wider, they’d fall out of his head. You’ve only ever seen him look this terrified once before - right before he disappeared. 

'Who's making decisions around here?' he says, so hurriedly that he almost trips over his words. His hands are outstretched, both to calm Liam and seemingly to reach for the katana himself. You step up beside him, a united front. 'Where's Scott? Where's Stiles?'

The mention of Stiles’ name puts you all on high alert. Hayden and Liam stare at him in disbelief, and you snap towards him as if he’s suddenly a powerful magnet. Not that you need an excuse to stare at him, but now it’s in awe rather than...well, a different kind of awe.

'You remember Stiles?' Hayden asks in amazement.

'Why wouldn't I remember Stiles?' Theo responds, shaking his head as if you’ve all gone mad. 

Liam smirks, a pale imitation of Theo’s favourite facial expression. 'Maybe he's useful after all.'

'As touching and confusing as all this is,' Mr. Douglas interrupts, 'but I’m going to get all of this extremely expensive equipment back to the school before someone notices it’s all missing and I get fired. You should all get out of here.' His eyes linger on Theo, but he doesn’t say anything else. You’re all dismissed, clearly.

'There’s something not right about him,' you say as the four of you move off awkwardly, Liam and Hayden in the lead with you and Theo trailing behind. 

'You don’t know the half of it,' Theo replies under his breath, and although you quirk an eyebrow at him, he refuses to elaborate.

'So, where now? I assume you’ve got a Plan B, since Plan A was a total bust,' Theo calls, but Liam and Hayden ignore him and just continue walking.

'We’ll all go back to Scott’s. Everyone else has been investigating one of the last places the Ghost Riders went before they got to Beacon Hills. There’s a lot to catch you up on, and none of it’s good,' you tell him, sighing heavily.

You feel a sudden pressure on your hand and look down to see Theo’s own slipped inside it. It’s warm and familiar, reassuring, even though you can’t remember the last time you held hands, if ever. 

'Hey,' he says quietly, and you look up at him, look at him properly for the first time since he returned. He’s still thick with dirt, and his clothes need to be thrown in an incinerator, but you’ve never been so happy to see him in your entire life. Beacon Hills might be in even worse danger than usual, but somehow, you know things are going to change now that Theo’s here. 

'Whatever’s going on, we’ll work it out,' he tells you, squeezing your hand to emphasise his point. 'I’m here. I’m real. I’m back, and this time, I’m here to stay.'


	3. Evidence Of Trauma

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Set during the events of Teen Wolf 6x07: Heartless

You push open the front door of Scott’s house, placing the spare key that you and every other member of the pack have back in your pocket. The level of trust that Scott has for you all always astounds you, and as the four of you troop through the door, you wonder if what you’ve done will finally shatter that unquestionable trust.

Liam and Hayden are doing their best to ignore both you and Theo, still processing the events of the evening and wondering, like you, how Scott is going to react.

‘Do I have to stand here covered in dirt all night, or do you guys mind if I take a shower?’ Theo asks. It’s an innocent question, since he is still black with dirt from his underground prison, but Liam just scowls at him.

‘Do what you want. Just don’t leave,’ he tells Theo, and you’re quick to jump in.

‘I’ll go up with him, make sure he doesn’t do anything.’ You’re acutely aware of how eager your voice sounds despite your best efforts to suppress it. Liam rolls his eyes, and Hayden surprises you all with her own scathing remark:

‘And who’s going to make sure the both of you don’t do anything?’ 

Your cheeks burn red, and you can feel the heat of Theo’s anger building behind you. Before either of you can reply and make things worse, you turn and place your hand on his chest, forcing him up the stairs and towards Scott’s bathroom. You’re grateful Melissa isn’t home, because having to deal with how she would react to seeing Theo again isn’t something you felt up to right now.

‘Well, those two grew some teeth while I was away,’ Theo comments dryly as you enter Scott’s bedroom. The door to the attached bathroom is ajar, and Theo moves towards it.

‘We’ve all had a rough time, these past few weeks,’ you tell him, trying hard not to mention how painful your life has been without him in it, how dealing with the Ghost Riders has been nigh on impossible without him by your side.

You drop the backpack you’ve been carrying to the floor and motion to it as Theo turns Scott’s shower on. ‘I brought you some clothes. I didn’t know what you’d be like...when you came back, I mean.’ 

He smiles, that warm, genuine smile that has lived in your memory for the past few weeks, sustaining you like a sun. Somehow, seeing it in the flesh, it’s even more brilliant than you remember. Because it’s just for you; it always has been.

‘Thanks. I won’t be long. And you don’t have to worry about me escaping or anything. I may not want to be here, but I’m not going to leave either. I don’t suppose you want to…’ he motions his head towards the shower, his smile replaced by his trademark mischievous smirk, the implication clear.

God, how you want to. The urge burns through you like fire, like how you imagine Parrish’s Hellhound fire burns through him. The urge to cross the room, fall into Theo’s arms and let the steaming heat of the shower wash away the past few weeks, the Ghost Riders, the mistrust. 

But you can’t. Much as you want to, you can’t.

You shake your head, returning his smirk with a sad smile of your own. ‘You don’t know how i wish I could say yes. But we can’t. Not here. Not yet.’

Theo’s smirk flattens out with disappointment, but he nods in understanding as well. The door shuts behind him, and you finally relax, laying flat on Scott’s bed.

The worries of earlier that night begin to finally seep away. You thought this wouldn’t work. You thought Theo would be different. You thought so many things, and none of them came true. The weight of your dark thoughts slowly releases off your shoulders, and within seconds, you’re asleep.

****

*****

You awaken to a gentle touch on your cheek, a damp hand tracing its way down your face. Your eyes flutter open, and Theo stands above you, a towel wrapped around his waist and water clinging to his eyelashes.

‘Oh, god,’ you moan, rolling over and sitting up. ‘I didn’t mean to fall asleep. How long have I been out?’ You check Scott’s bedside clock: half an hour. 

It may not have been long, but it was the first time you’ve slept peacefully since Theo disappeared. No nightmares about holes and corrupted packs. Just tranquil, silent, slumber.

‘It’s fine,’ Theo reassures you. ‘Liam and Hayden haven’t come up to check. No one else has come home. It’s still just us, for a little while longer.’

You gaze up at him gratefully, trying not to let your eyes drop from his face to his bare torso. Of course, you fail, but what you see isn’t what you expected at all. Your eyebrows crease in confusion.

Theo follows your gaze and looks down. ‘What? Did I gain weight while I was in the hole?’

You shake your head at the thought. As if werewolves are anything but perfect physical specimens, and Theo is no exception, even if he’s not a werewolf - not exactly. ‘No, it’s not that. I just thought there’d be...scars or something.’

Theo’s expression darkens, and his hand flies to his chest, splayed over his heart. ‘No. No scars. Not the physical kind, anyway.’

You don’t want to ask, but you desperately want to know. ‘What...happened down there?’ you begin, and then hastily add: ‘but if you don’t want to talk about it, I get it, it’s fine, don’t worry, forget I asked.’

Theo shakes his head. ‘I don’t want to talk about it. But I will. With you. Only with you.’ He looks up from his chest and holds your gaze, impressing upon you how serious this is. What it means for him to open his heart to you. ‘Promise me you won’t tell anyone else. Not until I’m ready.’

You nod slowly, eyes never leaving his this time.

And so he sits beside you, hands clasped in his lap, staring at a spot on Scott’s carpet as he tells you his story. How he has relieved the same horrific nightmare over and over for the past few weeks. Being hunted by the ghost of his dead sister. The sister he killed. How she tore his heart from his chest, over and over, trying to recover the heart he took from her.

The emotional toll is unimaginable. How Theo can still form coherent sentences and not spend every waking moment crying is beyond you. You know that you wouldn’t have been able to endure half as long as he has. 

And as he reaches the end of his tale, as he tells you how he finally began to resign himself to his punishment, how he came to realise that yes, he truly deserved having this happen to him, your own heart breaks all over again. 

He’s not crying. He won’t let himself. But you edge closer to him, putting your arm around his shoulders and drawing him close to you. He finally looks up from the carpet, and you can see the redness in his eyes, the quiver in his lips, the raw emotion on his face.

You were right after all. This isn’t the Theo that went into the hole. This is someone else. Someone vulnerable. Someone who needs you almost as much as you need him.

A kiss seems inappropriate, not enough to tell him how much you feel for him, how you wish you could take away the pain he now feels. But words would be inadequate, so it’s all you have to give.

You close the gap between you and find his mouth with yours. As your eyes close, you feel his tears drip from his eyes to your cheeks, mingling with your own. It’s not a kiss of passion, of love, or lust. It’s a kiss of understanding, your own way of saying that he’s not alone in this. That you won’t let him deal with it on his own. That you’re there for him, after all he’s been through. That you won’t leave him alone again.

Liam chooses that exact moment to burst through the door, and you and Theo quickly pull apart. 

‘I thought we told you not do anything,’ he says, rolling his eyes. You feel the blush from before return, but Liam plows on as if he can’t see it. ‘Scott’s just texted. They’ll be here soon. Get dressed, we have a lot to talk about.’

You look sheepish as he shuts the door and retreats back downstairs, but Theo laughs, deep in his chest. ‘I guess he’s right. There’ll be time enough for all that later.’

The unspoken promise in that sentence fills you with happiness again, burning away the blush of embarrassment. You scoop up the clothes you brought Theo and throw them at him playfully.

‘Get dressed, we have a lot to talk about,’ you tell him in your best impression of Liam, which makes him laugh again. He holds the wad of clothing to his chest, the remnants of the laugh making the corner of his mouth twitch up, but what he says next is far more serious.

‘Whatever happens when Scott gets home, if he hits me, you can’t get involved, alright?’

‘What? No, don’t be ridiculous,’ you scoff, but he’s not playing around. 

‘There’s...bad stuff between us. He’ll want to hit me. He might. I know Malia probably will. But you have to let them, okay? They need to get it out of their system, and I need to show them that I’m not a threat. Not anymore.’

You bite your lower lip and shake your head in defiance, but your voice says: ‘Alright. If you say so.’

You can only hope that what you thought about Scott not holding grudges is true, after all.

****

*****

Scott motions to you and Liam, and you follow him into the living room, leaving Hayden and Malia alone with Theo, who’s holding his nose to stop it bleeding. Malia really laid him out, and it took all your effort to not get between them.

Not that that would have helped; Malia probably would have hit you too, and Theo would have been disappointed you didn’t listen to him. But he’d kept his word. He hadn’t lashed out. He’d let Malia pummel him, and even though she carried on threatening to kill him, he hadn’t retaliated.

He’d proven himself, at least from your perspective. So now you had to argue his corner for him. Unfortunately, Liam’s the first to be raked over the coals.

‘What, you don't trust me?’ he asks Scott, and you’re once again distinctly aware of the relationship these two now have, and how far they’ve come. Liam wants Scott’s approval here, and you’re definitely worried that he’s not going to get it.

‘I don't trust him,’ Scott clarifies, narrowing his eyes. ‘Do you?’ His tone of voice seems to suggest that he thinks Liam is insane; you can’t really argue with him. You knew Scott would react negatively. There wasn’t any scenario where he’d be happy to see the man who literally killed him, and hurt his friends in so many different ways. But you’re going to convince him to let Theo stay. You have to, because the alternative doesn’t bear thinking about.

‘No! But I think we can use him,’ Liam insists.

‘Remember who he is. He got into your head and you tried to kill me.’ You see Liam’s mouth tighten, as he’s reminded of something he spent so long trying to move past. ‘And when that didn't work, he did kill me. And Tracy, and Josh, and his sister.’

‘But this might be our only chance to get Stiles back!’ Liam is emphatic, trying to appeal to Scott through his emotions. Nothing else has been working, so maybe a bad option might be the only way to save Stiles. Scott has to see that.

‘Can't we just try to find somebody that we at least trust?’ Scott replies, and you can hear a glimmer of hope in the tone of his voice.

This is your cue, you think. ‘You said you trusted me, Scott.’ He whirls away from Liam, as if he’d forgotten you were there. ‘You said you trusted me,’ you repeat. ‘Trust me now.’

The conflict is clear on Scott’s face. He wants to be angry. He wants to trust you. He wants this all to be over. ‘What did you think you were doing?’ he asks, playing for time. ‘I left you guys alone for a day, and you bring him back!’

‘It wasn’t a perfect plan, I think we can all admit that,’ you say, and Liam shrugs his shoulders in agreement. ‘But it might just work. I didn’t believe it at first when Liam suggested it, but I think, with Theo’s help, we might be able to stop the Ghost Riders.’

‘And you’re not just saying that because you love him?’ Scott says. From anyone else, it’d be an insult, but there’s no malice in his voice as he says it, just concern that his friend is making a grave mistake because their heart is overriding their common sense.

You take a breath, composing your answer. You’d thought about this a lot in the past few hours, and come to a satisfying conclusion.

‘I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t happy Theo was back. If I haven’t always been trying to think of ways to suggest we bring him back, give him another chance. But I never brought it up. I know what he did to you. To all of us. Even me, and, for better or worse, I still love him. But it wasn’t me that finally said it. Liam’s idea wasn’t great. But it does make some twisted kind of sense. When we’re fighting an enemy that we can’t stop, what other choice do we have?

‘I can get through to him,’ you tell Scott the same way you told Liam. ‘I can keep him in check. He’s changed; I can tell, even though he’s only been back for a while. He’s different now,’ you say, thoughts of his confession in the bedroom racing through your memory. ‘He’ll help us, if we let him. You don’t have to trust him. Trust me. Please, Scott.’

Liam picks up the thread of the conversation, running with what you’ve said. ‘This might be a mistake. But you don't know that yet. And you made mistakes when you were learning to be an Alpha.’

‘Yeah, I made a lot. But we don't have time for mistakes,’ Scott replies. And then the anger is gone, the disbelief, and all you can see is someone fighting as hard as they can to rescue their best friend. If your heart wasn’t already still in pieces from Theo’s confession, it would break all over again when he says: ‘I can't lose Stiles.’

Liam steps closer, speaking almost in a whisper. ‘So we should try anything we can to save him. Right?’ There’s a lengthy pause as he lets Scott digest that, really let the hopelessness of the situation sink in. When you later find out about the fate of Canaan, you realise just how right Liam is. 

‘Even Theo.’

Scott closes his eyes, as if he can’t bear to face his own decision as he says: ‘Convince me.’

And you have to stop yourself breathing a sigh of relief as you know that, at least for now, Theo is safe.

****

*****

‘You ready for this?’ Theo asks, as the sky above whips itself into a frenzy. The transformer is on, and now all you can do is wait and hope that this ill-conceived, totally unreliable, completely insane plan works.

You hold a jar of mountain ash in one hand, and the other is at your side, clenching and unclenching each time lightning strikes around you. 

‘Am I ready to capture a mythical monster that could potentially kidnap me and my friends and take us away to who-knows-where? No, I’m not ready for this. But I’m here, aren’t I?’ You’re more scathing than you want to be, but Theo nods gravely. He knows how hard it is for you, a human in the middle of all this supernatural craziness.

But he also knows you wouldn’t want it any other way. No matter the danger, you won’t leave your friends to face this alone.

You’re outside the little shack that houses the Dread Doctors’ old transformer, back against the wall with Theo to one side and Scott the other. Liam and Mason are around the other corner, waiting for the signal, and you can vaguely hear Corey pacing backwards and forwards, invisible, on the roof of the shack.

‘We can do this. It’s a good plan,’ Scott tells you both, but even his usually convincing smile seems to waver this time as he tries to reassure himself as well as the two of you.

‘Hey, you’re trusting me, so you’re probably desperate anyway, right?’ Theo says with a wry smile. You grin back, but Scott’s face is impassive. Theo looks away; clearly they haven’t gotten to the ‘bad jokes about Theo being evil’ stage of their relationship yet.

Before you have to endure any more awkward banter between the two of them, you’re deafened by the boom of thunder, and blinded by a flash of light from above you. You look back behind you at the roof of the shack and see Corey, now visible, hurriedly pulling the lightning rod down.

‘That’s our cue,’ Scott says, and the three of you run around the corner of the shack and into the side door.

You’re greeted with a scene of controlled chaos. Within the Faraday cage in the centre of the room is a Ghost Rider, visible for you all to see. His face is unreadable, his mouth a gash across the centre of his face, sealed over like a drowned man straining for air through a plastic bag. 

You can’t believe it worked. The Ghost Rider is here, and he’s almost exactly where you want him.

Liam has slammed one door shut, and you can see Hayden and Mason behind him, ready to move as soon as the Rider is fully secured.

Scott barrels past you, grabbing hold of the remaining door and pulling, hard. The gate begins to move, and then catches on a pole, rebounding backwards and catapulting itself back open.

Your heart drops so hard you can almost feel it hitting the inside of your shoes. The Ghost Rider, sensing weakness, crosses the cage headed straight for Scott who is pulling as hard as he can, but getting nowhere.

‘Theo! Do something!’ you shout, reaching back behind you to grab his arm and spur him into action but he’s already moving. Later, you’ll wonder if it was self-preservation, or a genuine urge to help, and even later than that, you’ll decide it doesn’t matter.

What does matter is that Theo joins Scott, grabbing the opposite side of the sliding door and yanking it with all his might. The Ghost Rider has made it to the opening, and it puts one hand on Theo’s shoulder, like a guillotine blade dropping to announce a death sentence.

Theo does his best to ignore it, instead yelling at Scott: ‘Keep pushing!’, even as the Ghost Rider drags Theo’s arm into the gap between the doors. 

You see what’s going to happen just as the crunch of bones breaking echoes out around the shack, even over the sound of the storm outside. Even more unnerving is the sound of Theo’s scream as his shoulder cracks, short and sharp as he suppresses the pain long enough to pull the doors closer together.

Liam appears behind him, dragging Theo free of the doors and leaving Scott alone to face the Ghost Rider, who is now attempting to squeeze through the remaining gap and force the door back open.

If he gets out, you’re all done for. You know it, and Scott knows it too.

He roars, a deep, guttural roar that you’ve heard many times before. It inspires you, and frightens all enemies of the pack that hear it. If you could see Scott’s eyes, you know they’d be burning crimson as he channels all of his True Alpha power into the sound.

It’s enough. The Ghost Rider recoils, and the burst of strength that Scott’s werewolf form grants him is enough to finally force the two resistant doors closed.

Now it’s your turn. You spring into action, running past Theo (even if you want to stop and check if he’s okay) and flinging the lid of your jar off. You pour mountain ash in a line around the cage, the black dust tumbling free of the container in a dark waterfall of protection. You’re not even looking as you collide with Mason, and you both collapse onto the floor in a heap.

But your job is done. The mountain ash circle is complete, and the Ghost Rider is trapped. 

That’s not the end, however. You’re still vulnerable, and if the Ghost Rider gets a good look at you, you’re next on its list. With Scott yelling ‘Go! Go!’ urgently behind you, you grab Mason and flee the shack as fast as you can.

You both come to a sharp halt about twenty feet away from the building, doubled over and panting hard. Mason looks up at you, the biggest grin you’ve ever seen on his face.

‘If you say that was intense, I’m going to punch you so hard,’ you warn him, and his grin turns into laughter.

‘It worked. I can’t believe it worked!’ 

‘We have so much faith in ourselves. It’s a wonder we ever get anything done, what with our overly inflated egos,’ you pant as Corey joins you, materializing out of thin air next to Mason.

‘We did it,’ he says in his soft-spoken voice. It’s no wonder his power is invisibility.

‘I guess we did,’ you concede. ‘Now let’s see if Scott’s able to get some answers that we can use.’

You turn back towards the shack, arms crossed, watching the Ghost Rider’s lightning play uselessly over the darkened windows. It can’t escape the same way it came in; the Faraday cage is working. Theo was right. He, Hayden, Scott, and Liam are all still inside, facing off against one of the most powerful enemies you’ve all ever encountered.

You hope they can find a way to stop them. A way to reason with them. A way to get Stiles back. Something that you can use to put this entire situation to rest, finally.

The sound of Theo’s scream as his arm broke cracks through your memory, and you wince as it replays in your head. You’re sure he’s fine. Werewolf healing will fix him up in no time. But that doesn’t stop you worrying.

It’s just one more in a long line of worries, as you stare at the shack and wish more than anything that this would finally be over.

But of course, things always get worse before they get better. And they’re already so awful, it’s hard to imagine what will go wrong next.

If only you knew.

****

*****

A shadow speeds past you, and the air is instantly superheated, as if you’ve walked from the forest into a furnace. As it retreats into the night, you can just about make out the shape of a man, his footprints leaving behind blacked leaves as his feet sear the ground.

‘Was that...Parrish?’ you wonder, and before the sentence is even complete, you’re running yourself but in the opposite direction, a magnet drawing you back to the shack. If Parrish is leaving, something’s gone wrong.

You cross the short distance just in time, barely avoiding colliding with Scott, Liam, Mason, and Hayden as they get back themselves. Corey, in true chameleon fashion, is nowhere to be seen.

‘What’s going on? What happened?’ you ask, tumbling through the shack door with all the grace of a newborn deer.

The first thing you notice is that the Faraday cage door is open. The second is the body on the floor.

The Ghost Rider, somehow, is dead. The back of its head has been torn open, an oozing red mess where the back of its skull should be. As you get closer, the copper tang of blood fills the air, and you’re almost certain that there are bits of brain littering the floor. You clamp a hand over your mouth, trying not to gag.

Only then do you realise that someone else is missing. Where’s Theo? Your mind races unbidden - did whatever got the Ghost Rider get him too? 

A cough sounds from the back of the room, and all of your heads turn towards it. Part of you is relieved - Theo is alive. But he’s slumped against the transformer, blood trickling down the side of his mouth and his head lolled to one side. He’s in a bad way, and you’re already past your friends and kneeling at his side before anyone else can move.

‘Theo, oh god, what happened? Who did this to you?’ You reach out and turn his face towards you, and he grimaces with pain as you do so. 

Hayden is less gentle. She pushes you to one side and drags Theo to his feet, eliciting another cry of pain from him as she does so.

‘Leave him alone, can’t you see he’s hurt?’ you ask her, but she’s focused on Theo alone.

‘What did you do?’

Theo’s voice is filled with fear, a sound you’re unaccustomed to hearing when he’s always so confident and sure of himself. ‘It...it was Mr. Douglas. He ate his brain.’

He aims this last comment past Hayden to Scott, knowing that he has to convince him more than anyone. Because no one else seems to believe him.

‘Scott was right,’ Liam begins, resignation heavy in every word. ‘I was wrong. I’m sending you back.’

Theo looks as if he’s going to cry, and it shakes the very core of your being to see him this way. How can no one else see how much he’s changed? He may have been a perfect actor before, but this is genuine sorrow. Twice in a short span of hours, you’ve seen Theo cry.

‘What? Theo didn’t do this!’ you protest, waving an arm at the dead Ghost Rider, the open cage. ‘He said it was Mr. Douglas. You have to believe him!’

Scott’s not looking at you, or Theo, or even Liam. He’s kneeling down, gingerly examining the body. Or, more precisely, what’s left of the Ghost Rider’s skull. ‘It wasn’t his brain,’ he concludes. ‘Mr. Douglas ate his pineal gland.’

Hearing Scott say the science teacher’s name, a weight recedes from your chest where you hadn’t even realised it was sitting. He believes Theo. Or least, he doesn’t suspect him.

Mason takes Scott’s thought and runs with it. ‘It couldn’t have been Theo. These murders have been going on for weeks.’

‘Mason’s right, Scott. Theo didn’t do this. He wouldn’t. He wouldn’t set all this up just to kill the Ghost Rider right in front of us. What purpose does that serve?’

Even with the evidence backing you up, you feel the need to defend Theo further. You have to get them to give him a break. ‘And Theo knows stuff about Mr. Douglas. He hinted at it before when we were talking. He’ll help us, I know he will,’ you insist, and try to catch Theo’s eye. He’s sunk back down to the floor now that Hayden has released him and seems to be doing his best to stay out of this conversation.

Why is he hiding things? You thought that, now he was back, he’d be more forthcoming. Surely he’s realised that ulterior motives only end with him going back into the hole. And away from you. 

‘Guys,’ Liam says, drawing your attention away from Theo’s clouded expression and back to the dead Ghost Rider. He points solemnly at the empty holster at the Ghost Rider’s hip. ‘His whip’s gone.’

‘Why would Mr. Douglas take that?’ Hayden wonders out loud.

‘I told you, Theo knows more. He’s going to help us, you’ll see,’ you tell them all once again.

But a small voice in the back of your mind says, you really better be right this time. Because, if Theo’s right, it’s not just the Ghost Riders you have to contend with anymore. And whatever Theo has to tell you might just be your only hope of getting out of this alive.


	4. Reconfinement

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Set during the events of Teen Wolf 06x08: Blitzkrieg

Another one of your friends is gone, lost at the hands of the Ghost Riders.

Or, more specifically, Mr Douglas and his stolen Ghost Rider powers.

Corey is the latest in a long line of people you care about that have been affected by the Ghost Riders’ presence in Beacon Hills, and you’re getting pretty damn sick of it. The stakes can’t seem to get any higher, and every time you think you’re winning, or have uncovered some new information that can help you out, something goes completely wrong, or a new threat emerges from elsewhere.

Case in point: Now, not only do you have an army of supernatural kidnappers to deal with, but Mr Douglas and whatever his deal is too. 

At least there’s one shining light in all this. You may have lost Stiles, you may have lost Corey, and all of the other people that the Ghost Riders have taken, but you’ve gotten Theo back, and that, while it doesn’t outweigh all the loss and sadness of recent weeks, does go a little way towards making you feel a bit better.

Unfortunately, it looks like you’re about to be separated again.

‘Why can’t he come home with me?’ you ask Scott, as Liam and Hayden go to take Mason home. He’s inconsolable now that you’ve all realised Corey is missing, blaming himself. You completely understand where he’s coming from; you know exactly what it feels like when someone you love is taken away from you.

Scott tries to give you his most understanding smile, but even he looks exhausted after the revelations of the night. ‘It’s not safe. I know you trust Theo, and I trust you, but I still don’t trust him. He may have helped us tonight, but it’s too soon to be letting him wander around on his own.’

‘So what’re you going to do with me?’ Theo asks. His eyes flit from side to side, as if expecting Kira to leap out of nowhere and put him back in his hole for safe keeping. But Liam has the sword, and he’s taken it with him. He’s not in danger, for now.

Your mind presents you with an image of Theo chained to a tree like a wild animal, and you shudder at the thought.

‘We’ll take you to the Sheriff’s station. There’s a holding cell there. The Sheriff’s been taking personal time off, because of the whole Stiles thing,’ Scott tells you both, tripping over Stiles’ name as if it’s getting harder to say it without breaking down. ‘So you won’t have to worry about explaining yourself to him. You can stay in the cell until we figure out our next move.’

‘From one prison to another,’ Theo says, rolling his eyes. But, he doesn’t complain any further. Instead, he motions towards the path in a ‘lead the way’ gesture. The three of you troop off, Theo in the middle, Scott at the head, and you bringing up the rear, as if you were a prison convoy on the way to deliver a highly dangerous criminal.

Which, in a sad, twisted way, you are.

******* ******

The Sheriff’s station is basically empty, aside from one police officer at the front desk who barely even notices you wandering around. You’re basically window dressing, everyone in the pack spending so much time here (and not all of it as a result of being in trouble), so it’s no problem to wander through the station to the holding cell.

‘Home sweet home,’ Theo quips, standing with his arms crossed as Scott opens the door, holding it open as invitingly as a cage can be opened.

Only you notice the nervous swallow that Theo does, the motion of his Adam’s apple barely perceptible to anyone who didn’t know him as well as you. He’s afraid. Afraid of being confined again so soon. He’s just escaped from one prison. Now, he’s willingly resigning himself to another, even if it’s only a temporary one.

‘We’ll be back in the morning,’ Scott informs him, shutting the door with a clang of finality as Theo enters the cage. ‘We have to work out another plan, before all of Beacon Hills is taken.’

‘You know where I’ll be,’ Theo tells you both, smirking to hide his discomfort. You turn to follow Scott as he leaves, but stop on the threshold of the room.

‘I’m not going, Scott,’ you suddenly say, and you know in your heart that you couldn’t leave, even if Scott tried to force you. You couldn’t leave Theo alone again.

Scott stops in the corridor ahead and looks back. He still has the keys to the cell clutched in his hand, presumably to return to the Sheriff’s desk or the officer on duty. He looks down at them in thought, then puts them back into the pocket of his jacket, decision made.

‘Alright. We’ll see you tomorrow,’ he says, then, as an afterthought: ‘Be careful.’

‘I’ll be alright. He won’t hurt me. He won’t hurt any of us. I know it.’

Scott gives you a sad smile, as if he hopes you’re right but can’t quite get his face to believe the rest of him, and then he departs, leaving you alone with Theo once more.

‘I’d tell you to get comfortable, but I don’t think this place is designed for comfort,’ he tells you, but when you turn back from the door, you’re not in the mood for jokes.

‘You can drop the act now, you know. You don’t have to pretend around me any more. I know you’re scared,’ you reveal, and there’s a flicker across Theo’s face as the facade drops for a second before he replaces it.

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

You move to the edge of the cage, hands wrapped around the bars. Theo’s in the centre of it, but he takes an unconscious step towards you. ‘I can’t imagine what it was like, where you were. How it must feel to come back and have all these people looking at you like you’re worse than the people you’re trying to save them from. But you don’t have to pretend with me,’ you repeat.

Theo drops your gaze, considering the cell floor for a second. When he looks back up, the fear that you glimpsed before is evident right away. He’s taken off his mask.

‘You’re right,’ he admits. ‘I am scared. I’m trying. I don’t want them to send me back. I don’t want to go away again. But I can’t let them see me be weak. If I’m weak, they won’t want my help, and then they might get rid of me anyway.

‘I’ve spent so long pretending to be someone I’m not, trying to be someone better, that I’ve forgotten what it’s like to just be me. How does Theo Raeken react to things? Is he a strong person? Or is he the type of guy who just turns around and runs?

‘I’m trying to be someone that you all need. That you can rely on. But I’ve never wanted something this bad before. Not power. Not a pack. I can’t bear to think about what might happen to my mind if I get sent back to that place. I don’t think I’d survive it again.

‘The only thing that comes close to how much I want to stay alive, to stay in this world, is how much I want…to be with you.’

The raw emotion in Theo’s voice almost burns his throat as he speaks. It’s the most honest he’s been since you’ve known him, you think. He’s been honest with you before, when it counted. 

But it’s the first time he’s been honest with himself.

You move to the side of the cage where a small wooden bench is positioned. You yank it as hard as you can, dragging it across the floor with a horrible screeching noise, like Lydia’s banshee scream mixed with good old fashioned nails on a chalkboard. You’re surprised no one comes into check on what’s going on, but the officer on duty is probably used to weird noises in Beacon Hills.

You drag the bench right up against the bars of the cage, and sit down on the corner. You extend your hand through the bars, palm up, inviting Theo to fill it with his own. He collapses to the floor, back against the wall, and does so, cradling your hand to his chest.

‘I’m not going anywhere,’ you tell him firmly. ‘And neither are you. I don’t care what Scott says. I don’t care if Liam threatens you with that sword. I’m not letting them take you away again. But you have to do your part too. And I can see that you are. If I can see it, it’s not going to be long before Scott and the others see it too.

‘You’ve changed, Theo. Or you’re becoming the person you would have been long ago, if it wasn’t for the Dread Doctors. You’re brave. You’re strong. You’re not evil. You’re so much more than they give you credit for, and one day soon they’ll see you for the person I’ve known you are, even before you knew it for yourself.’

He looks up at you from his perch on the floor, a small smile playing about his lips. He presses them against your hand, kissing it as a proxy since the bars prevent him from kissing you the way you want him to.

‘Thank you,’ he whispers. ‘Thank you for believing in me.’

‘I’ve missed you so much,’ you confess, the cliché dropping from your lips before you can stop it, and mentally chiding yourself for sounding so dumb, but Theo doesn’t care.

‘The thought of you, what you must have thought of me at the end, that hurt me almost as much as seeing my sister did, when I was...down there,’ Theo confesses. ‘I disappointed you. I betrayed you. I hurt you and your friends, and you have every right never to want to see me again. And yet, here you are, sitting in a freezing cold jail cell with a killer chimera.’

‘I told you, you’re more than that. You’re...you’re Theo. And I’m not leaving you ever again.’

The pair of you fall silent then, hands clasped together, sitting without a sound, simply savouring the fact that you’re both here, both together, both alive, and both safe, at least for a little while longer.

And that’s exactly how Scott finds you the following morning, asleep, head lulled to one side, hand still clasped in Theo’s, as if you were two halves of a whole.

******* ******

You’ve missed the team meeting, although from what you understand it wasn’t much of a meeting as Peter telling you you’re all insane and Scott coming up with another insane plan to spite him. Breaking through the rift and biting Stiles sounds like an awful idea, and this is coming hot on the heels of capturing a Ghost Rider in a Faraday cage and interrogating it.

And now Scott, Lydia, and Malia are out looking for the rift, the entrance to the Ghost Riders’ dimension where they’re keeping all of your friends. Where they’re keeping Stiles, and Corey, and god knows who else they might have taken that you can’t remember.

Which leaves you here with the back-up team. Liam, Hayden, and Mason are sitting near the jail cell, on the bench that you’d repositioned the previous night. Theo is, of course, still in the cell itself. But despite being the one behind bars, he seems to be entirely in control of the situation.

The vulnerable, relieved Theo that you were with last night is now cocooned within his harder outer shell, the arrogant, cocky Theo that he becomes when he needs to protect himself. 

‘You want me to tell you about Douglas?’ he asks Mason. ‘Break the sword.’

You’re keeping back once more, letting the four of them work this out between themselves. He doesn’t need to convince you of anything. 

Theo can do this. You know he can. And once he tells them everything, they might start their way back on the road towards trusting him again.

Mason cracks under the pressure, turning back towards Liam in defeat. ‘Does anyone else want to do the negotiating?’

Theo looks right at Liam, smirk firmly plastered to his face. ‘Break the sword.’

Hayden interrupts before Liam can make any kind of decision. ‘I'll break the sword. I'll break it right in-’

‘Hayden,’ Liam warns, walking up to the cage door, a united front with his own pack-within-the-pack. The three of them together remind you of how this all began; Scott, Stiles, and Allison. And you, again, on the outskirts looking in. At least, that’s how it started. But you’d won their trust and their friendship, and a place in the pack. 

Just like Theo was trying to do now. 

Granted, you hadn’t murdered anyone and gone to Hell, so it wasn’t a total similarity, but...

‘You break, I talk,’ Theo reiterates. The three of them just stare at him. It’s an absurd game of chicken, each waiting for the other to blink first. You don’t have time for all this - the Ghost Riders are getting bolder every day, and now Mr. Douglas is loose doing who knows what.

But you can’t rush any of this. Theo has it under control.

‘Come on, guys,’ Theo says imploringly. He gets up from his perch on the cell seat and crosses to the cage door, looking out at them all individually. ‘Look, I don't want anyone's pack. I don't want anyone's power. I just wanna stay alive.’

He’s never looked as genuine as he looks now, at least not when he was around anyone other than you. This is how you can tell he isn’t lying; all the times before, when he was faking it, or deceiving people as part of his plans, he never looked the way he looks now.

Hayden asks the practical question. ‘How do we know if we let you out, you won't run?’ 

‘Because he won’t,’ you chip in. ‘He’s here to help us, like I keep telling you.’

Liam either isn’t listening or doesn’t care. ‘Because we're not letting him out. He's going to tell us from in here.’

Theo takes a deep breath. He might not get everything he wants. Not right now. But it’s a start. His eyes run down the length of the katana, still gripped in Liam’s hand. ‘I'm still going to need some incentive.’

Liam, seeing no other option, takes the blade in his hands and twists the top, the way Kira’s father once did to stop Kira using her sword against her friends. The energy that holds the blade together crackles, and then the katana disintegrates into its component pieces.

The sound of metal raining on the floor of the room pervades the silence as the only thing that Theo’s been afraid of since he’s returned breaks apart. The only way to put it back together again would require a kitsune - which you’re all fresh out of. With Kira away with the Skinwalkers, and Noshiko in the wind, Theo is safe.

The threat of being sent back to Hell, back to the waiting arms of his sister, has dissipated.

It’d be easy for him to lie. To go back on his word and not tell you anything. Or feed you misinformation that would get you all killed. But he won’t do that. You know he won’t. 

‘I’ll take those,’ you inform Liam, collecting the metal pieces of the sword. You pull an evidence bag from a nearby table and fill it with the sword pieces; you’ll try and find somewhere more secure for them afterwards. Maybe Kira’s father still has the jar that Kira kept them in before.

‘Do you really think that’s a good idea?’ Liam asks, conflict in his expression. He wants to trust you, but you have a bad track record when it comes to Theo; you’ve never actually betrayed the pack for his sake, but when it comes to him, your judgment is sometimes...clouded.

‘I don’t think we can trust you with those,’ Hayden says, far more directly. ‘What’s to stop you dropping them in a river? We need some way to control him.’

‘He’s not a pet, Hayden. He’s a person.’

‘He’s also standing right here, you know,’ Theo comments, but his complaint goes unrecognized as you continue to argue on his behalf.

‘He’s a murderer, and if we take our eyes off him for one second, he could tear out our throats and leave us all to die. Again.’

‘That’s not who he is anymore, he’s different. He’s changed.’

‘He’s been back for less than forty eight hours, how can you know that? He fooled everyone before. Everyone. Even you. Why do you think that’s any different now?’

It’s a good question, and it makes you stop, mouth open ready to retort, but nothing to say. You look past Hayden into the jail cell, to Theo instead. He shrugs lightly, as if in resignation. He’s fought his corner as much as he’s willing to at the moment. Right now, he knows that they’re not going to believe him, no matter what he does. Nothing he could do could redeem himself in their eyes, not at this point. 

But the fact that he even feels that way is evidence enough. He cares what they think. He wants to prove himself to them. He wants them to trust him. And not just so they don’t send him away again. That’s not even an option any more. He wants to belong. 

‘Whatever happened to him in that hole,’ you say, skirting around the fact you know exactly what happened, ‘it’s clear he’s not the same Theo. If you spent more than five seconds talking to him without yelling or blaming him, you could see that. He knows what he did was wrong. He feels awful about it, and he’s willing to do whatever it takes to prove himself to us all again.’

You remember the promise you made yourself, just before Theo came back; if you were going to be reunited, you had to take control of the relationship. You couldn’t let Theo manipulate you, even if he doesn’t mean to do it. You trust him implicitly, but you’re not going to be foolish about it. You address your final argument directly to him.

‘If he betrays us again, I’ll put this sword back together and send him back to Hell myself.’

Theo looks taken aback, and you’re not even paying attention to Liam, Hayden, or Mason anymore. The shock on his face takes a second to register, but he blinks and nods silently; the others are focused on you, so they don’t see him do this. 

He understands. He knows it won’t come to that. He knows that you know it won’t come to that. But simply saying it affects your friends; they know that you mean business. And if you, the one person who loves Theo the most, can trust him, but with caution, maybe they can too.

You clearly learned something about convincing people from all the time you’ve spent with Theo.

Hayden is the first to recover her voice, and you know that once you’ve convinced her, the others won’t be far behind. ‘...Alright. If that’s how you feel, then I guess we can trust you with the sword pieces. For now. And as for you,’ she says, turning to Theo, ‘you have some explaining to do.’

Theo nods again, this time more enthusiastically. ‘I’ll prove myself to you all. I’ll never stop trying to do that. So, here’s what I know.’

When Theo finishes his tale about Mr Douglas, or Commandant Hauptmann, or whatever his name is, you almost wish you’d remained in blissful ignorance. So now, not only do you have the Ghost Riders to deal with, but a werewolf/werelion/Ghost Rider hybrid as well.

Somehow, knowing is even scarier than not knowing was.

******* ******

‘We have to tell Scott,’ Mason says, and he, Liam, and Hayden all head for the door. Theo’s story has brought you all to an unfortunate conclusion; Mr Douglas wants to create a supernatural army all for himself, and you and the pack are the only ones that can stop him.

Like you did the day before, you stop on the threshold of the room, hesitant to leave Theo alone. 

‘Go,’ he tells you as your friends disappear behind you. ‘Go find Scott. Prove that what I told you is true, that you can trust me. That I’m trying to help, and all that other nice stuff you were saying to them about me.’

‘I only said it because it’s true,’ you tell him with a smile. ‘I’m not helping you lie to them, not anymore.’

‘And I don’t want to lie to them,’ he says again, emphasising once more his new focus. To prove himself. To stay alive. To be needed.

Just then, the sound of doors slamming open makes your head snap around behind you in shock. You look back desperately at Theo, but he shrugs, as confused as you are. You creep to the doorway and peer around it, just in time to see Mason disappear in a burst of green smoke.

‘Oh god, they’re here,’ you whisper to yourself. What are you going to do?

As you watch, Liam and Hayden attack the Ghost Rider, the two betas attempting to drive it back.

Do you run out and help them, or will you just get in the way? You don’t have any supernatural powers; what use would you be against the Ghost Riders? And if you go out there, you might be taken too…

‘Theo, they’re here. The Ghost Riders are here. They...They got Mason. I don’t, I don’t know what…’ 

Concern is etched onto Theo’s face as though he were chiseled from marble. ‘You have to run. You have to get out of here!’

‘But Liam and Hayden, they’re out there fighting. And I can’t just leave you here!’ 

‘Don’t be stupid. I’ll be fine, save yourself!’ He’s pressed up against the bars now, and you pull yourself away from the doorway, from watching the fight, and go to him. He reaches out through the bars and grips your arms, trying to impress the urgency through his touch.

‘You have to go. You can’t stay here. Go!’ He practically roars this in your face, but you still can’t bring yourself to abandon him.

You’re getting frantic now, the threat of the Ghost Riders and the sounds of battle in your ear driving common sense out of your head. ‘No, I can’t, I’ll get the keys, I’ll get you out, we can leave together, we can-’

‘If you don’t leave right now, they’re going to hear you. They’re going to come in here, and they’re going to take us both. If you get out of here, you have a chance. You can find Scott, find Stiles, get everyone back alive.’ In stark contrast to you, Theo is as in control as he has ever been. His voice is stern, but the worry on his face, the grip on your arms, it’s all in aid of keeping you centered, stopping you from making a fatal mistake.

‘I’m not leaving you again, I promised!’

‘You have to! I’m not putting you in danger any more. Get out of here. If they take me, I know you’ll find me again. But if they took you and left me here alone, I don’t know what I’d do to get you back.

‘No, that’s a lie. I’d do anything. Anything. And that might mean the old Theo would come back, the one that lies and cheats and manipulates,’ he admits, and then he averts his eyes. ‘And kills.’

‘I don’t want to be that person anymore. I don’t want that to be the person that saves you. If you love me, you can’t let me be him again. You have to GO!’

The honesty in his admission, the pleading eyes he fixes you with, the sadness that plays about his lips as he releases you and bangs on the cell bars with closed fists are enough to spur you to action. You take a step back, and another, and before you know it you’ve backed into the doorway again.

‘I love you, Theo. I’ll find you again. I promise.’

‘I know you will,’ he says, and then you’re gone, fleeing the building, tears making it hard to see where you’re going. You don’t know what happened to Liam and Hayden, at least not until you crash into Liam himself in the parking lot. He’s almost as frantic as you are.

‘They took them, they took Hayden and Mason, and-’ 

‘Liam, oh god…’ You don’t know what to say. You don’t know how to comfort him. You know what it is to lose someone you love, but the words escape you. Instead, he folds himself into your arms, and you hold him tight, aware once more of how much smaller he is, how much younger he is than the rest of your pack. 

You wish you could stay like this, keeping him safe, keeping all of your friends safe from everything around you. But you have to leave. You still have a job to do. 

You slowly extricate Liam from your arms and put your hands on his shoulders, making him look you in the eye. ‘I know I’m not your favourite person right now. I know you’re having trouble trusting me.’

‘That’s not true. It’s Theo we don’t trust. You’ve always been there. Scott trusts you, so that means I do too. I just worry about you, about what Theo’s doing to you again,’ Liam tells you. 

You didn’t realise that was how he felt. You suddenly realise that you’ve been much harsher on yourself than everyone else has, and resolve to do better. Putting yourself down won’t help you save your friends.

‘Theo and I are fine. You don’t have to worry about me.’

‘That doesn’t mean I won’t,’ Liam admits with a shrug and a small smile.

‘You’re beginning to sound like Scott,’ you tell him, and you can see him visibly inflate with pride.

‘Now, we still have a job to do. We have to find Scott. We have to tell him what Theo told us. We can get our friends back. I know we can. All of us, together.’

Liam nods, that defiant look that makes him so endearing back in place. 

And so you flee the Sheriff’s station, hoping against hope that the Ghost Riders have left Theo alone. That you won’t return to an empty holding cell. 

That you haven’t lost him once again.

******* ******

‘I have a son.’

You’re all back at Scott’s, licking your wounds after your failed attempt to open the rift and save your friends. The disastrous attempt that instead lead Mr Douglas right to it, right through it thanks to Parrish, and resulted in you losing Peter Hale to the Ghost Riders again.

Granted, Peter isn’t your favourite person in the world, but he was trying to help, and any ally at this point is better than none. 

And now, Melissa and Argent are gone too. Scott has been entirely cut off, totally silent, constantly replaying his mother’s voice mail recording to remember the sound of her voice. None of you know what to do, what to say. 

The more people you lose, the more you feel as though this really is the end. That you can’t win this fight. But you can’t think that way. You’ve faced hopeless odds before. You’ve lost friends and gotten them back. You can’t give up.

You’ve been trying to focus on a plan, some new way to get through the rift before Mr Douglas does...whatever it is he plans on doing on, and rescue your friends; but without Parrish’s help, none of you can think of a way through.

And of course, your mind keeps flashing to an image of Theo, locked in that cell, unable to escape if the Ghost Riders came. Theo, trapped again, scared, vulnerable. 

Alone.

No. You’d know if he’d been taken. You’d feel it. You’re not sure if this is true, but it’s the only way you can keep going. The population of Beacon Hills is rapidly dwindling, but Theo is still here. He has to be.

But now the Sheriff is here, and he seems to brought with him a grain of hope. Hope that you need, now more than ever before.

‘His name is Mieczyslaw Stilinski. But we call him Stiles. I remember.’ 

You listen as the Sheriff rattles off facts about his son, about your friend, your friend who would know just what to say, what to do in this seemingly hopeless situation. 

‘And then the strangest thing happened,’ he finishes, as if remembering a son he thought he never had and having a wife who was magically conjured to help him deal with the loss of that son disappear wasn’t the strangest thing to happen that day.

‘What?’ Lydia asks.

‘I thought I saw him. It's like something opened right there in the middle of the room. Just for a moment. And then it was gone.’

‘A rift,’ Scott tells him, and you can already see the hope twinkling in his eyes. This is it. This is what you needed. This is how you can win.

‘I thought there was only one rift. We saw it disappear,’ Malia says. It could have been a pessimistic statement, but you feel as though she’s just trying to ensure that all of this hope isn’t false; that would be devastating, to have this final chance dangled in front of you and then whipped away.

Scott’s eyes flick back and forth, puzzling out the mystery of the new rift. ‘You remembered Stiles, and then a new rift was created,’ he says to the Sheriff, who shrugs. It’s not like he understands it any better than the rest of you.

‘If the Sheriff can do it…’ Malia begins, running with the thought.

‘...Maybe we can,’ Lydia finishes for her.

‘But that rift closed.’ This is Liam, finding another hole in the plan. But considering you had no plan before, even one as holey as Swiss cheese is an improvement.

‘Then we'll open it again,’ Scott concludes. It’s not a question. It’s a statement of fact.

‘How?’ 

‘By remembering Stiles. We have to remember everything.’

Scott looks around at you all, and you know this really is your last chance. The last ditch effort. The final gambit that means you either save your town, or fall to the Ghost Riders and Mr Douglas once and for all.

The air is heavy with anticipation, with the finality of what Scott’s suggesting. You’re so close to being out of time, so this is the last thing you’re going to get to try. There isn’t any room for error, for anything to go wrong. But if Scott believes it, you do too. 

This will work. 

It has to.


	5. Against The Inevitable

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Set during the events of Teen Wolf 06x09: Memory Found

‘Everyone knows their part of the plan, right? Because we’re only going to get one shot at this.’ 

A feeling of dread hangs in the air as thick as the fog that seems to follow the Ghost Riders. There are six of you left in the pack (no, seven, he’s not gone, he’s not), and for all you know, that’s all that remains of the population of Beacon Hills. The Ghost Riders could be literally single digits away from winning, and if this plan doesn’t work, you’re all going to spend your lives as Ghost Riders yourselves, in service to Mr Douglas and his screwed up Nazi vision of the world.

‘We’ve got it, Scott. Now let’s do this, before I lose my nerve,’ Sheriff Stilinski replies. He and Liam move towards the Sheriff’s police car, while Lydia, Malia, and Scott make for Lydia’s. You, meanwhile, are paralyzed on the pavement.

‘Hey, come on,’ Scott calls. ‘We’ve gotta go. Get in the car.’

‘I’m not coming with you, Scott,’ you tell him. ‘I’m going with Liam and the Sheriff.’

Scott looks conflicted, and screws up his face in that adorable way he does when he’s trying to think of a good way to deliver bad news. ‘I know you’re worried about Theo, but the most likely thing is that he’s already been taken. You know the plan - the Sheriff and Liam are going to distract the Ghost Riders as long as they can, while we all go try to remember Stiles. If we can get that rift open, we can get him back - and if we can get him back, that means we can get everyone back. Including Theo.’

‘I know. And I’d be lying if I said I didn’t want to go and check on him, make sure he’s not there. But that’s not the only reason I’m not coming with you. Stiles is my friend, same as you guys. But you all have a much stronger connection to him than I do. I’d just be getting in the way. I’d be better off going with Liam and the Sheriff; at this point, all I’m good for is bait.’

‘That’s not true,’ Lydia begins, and Scott nods along with her. You’re adamant, however. You know your value - compared to the supernatural members of the pack, you’re not that useful. It’s not self-deprecating, it’s just realistic.

‘And, if somehow Theo’s still at the police station, you guys will need me. He listens to me. And I know what he’s thinking; I can tell when he’s lying.’

‘Since when? He fooled you as much as the rest of us before,’ Malia says. You’re used to her bluntness now, but the statement still stings, even if she doesn’t intend it to. It reminds you of what Hayden said before, and it hurts just as much now as it did then. But the mistrust makes sense. Theo hurt them all. As much as they trust you, you’ve worked out by now that that isn’t enough to make them trust him too.

‘I told you. He’s different now. Since he came back, I can just tell. I know when he’s lying to us, and when he’s lying to himself.’

‘We really don’t have time to argue,’ the Sheriff says, pulling the passenger door of the police car open. ‘The longer we wait out here, the more vulnerable we are to attack. Let’s go!’

Scott seems to come to a decision; or, more likely, resigns himself to your stubbornness. ‘You’re more than just bait, you know. But if this is what you want, then go for it.’ He looks you in the eye, then the Sheriff, and finally Liam. 

‘Be careful, and we’ll see you soon. All of you. One way or another.’ 

****

*****

The radio crackles in the Sheriff’s hand. There’s no answer. No one on the other line. All of his deputies have vanished. They’ve all been taken by the Ghost Riders.

‘They’re gone,’ Liam says, in a voice like a stone dropping to the bottom of a pond - slow, inevitable, an unshakable conclusion.

‘That, that... That's not possible,’ the Sheriff stammers, trying to come to grips with what you’ve all been struggling with for days now. ‘That's... They couldn't have taken everyone.’

Then a voice rings out across the empty Sheriff’s station, and for one shining moment all of your fears are wafted away, like the sun slowly breaking through a dense, dark cloud, only to be swallowed up again seconds later.

‘They didn’t,’ says Theo, still standing in his jail cell, still here, still with you. 

You shout his name, all thoughts of caution and stealth thrown aside with abandon as you rush to the cell bars and grab his hands, checking that he’s real, not some ghost or hallucination sent to torment you. But no, the warmth of his touch is comforting, the beat of life pulsing through his skin. He’s still here. You didn’t lose him again.

‘I’m so glad you’re safe,’ you whisper as Liam and the Sheriff cross the room to join you. ‘I knew you were okay. I just knew.’

‘So did I,’ he admits, one hand on his chest, right above his heart. ‘I don’t know how to explain it, but there’s this...feeling, in my chest. It tightens when you’re in danger, but usually it’s just...there. It doesn’t hurt, or feel weird, or anything. It’s just...reassuring.’

You know what he means - because it’s the same with you. You’ve not been able to put the sensation into words until now, but it’s exactly as he says; a noose tied around your heart, linked to his. 

It’s love.

Because love is painful. Love is hard. Love hurts you, even when it doesn’t mean to. But love is also soothing; it’s knowing someone is out there, someone who knows how you feel, knows how and what you think, how much you love them; it’s knowing that the person on the other end of the rope feels the same way you do.

You are connected, this intangible chain stretched out across the world, with the pair of you at either end. And while you’re both still alive, you’ll always feel it. Always be connected. It’s why the past few weeks have been so hard for you, having one end of your chain lost and unable to find the person it was meant to be joined to. 

Because he wasn’t there. He was in Hell.

But now he’s not. Now he’s here. Here to help.

If only you can convince the Sheriff to think the same way.

****

*****

Theo lunges through the cell bars, fingers brushing the top of the keycard held enticingly within the Sheriff’s grip. But he’s too slow, and the card is too far away. The Sheriff whips it away, and Theo bangs the bars in anger, disappointment on his face.

‘Tell me something.’

The Sheriff, trained to always be cautious, especially around people with a track record for bad decisions, is testing Theo one last time. You desperately want to chime in and help, but it’s not your place. Unlike with the pack, you can’t help the Sheriff make up his mind. He has to do this on his own.

Hopefully he can do it quickly, because the Ghost Riders are undoubtedly on their way.

‘What?’ Theo asks, incredulous. ‘Tell you what? What are you talking about?’

‘Tell me about my son. Tell me one thing about Stiles that you remember. Just one.’

You swipe that key card, I'll tell you anything you want,’ Theo promises, pointing at the keycard holder repeatedly, like he’s trying to teach a dog a simple trick and losing his patience.

‘Sheriff,’ Liam interrupts, and his words are punctuated by the first clap of thunder heralding the storm. ‘They are coming!’ 

‘One thing. Just one thing!’ The Sheriff yells, and Theo returns his anger in spades, shaking the cell bars with all his strength; but they refuse to budge. He’s seething now, and the Sheriff takes his rage in stride, turning away in disgust, resigned to leaving Theo trapped, easy prey for the Ghost Riders.

You almost want to shake the older man; you need all the help you can get against the Ghost Riders. Even if the Sheriff can’t trust Theo, another body could be the thing that saves you all. You look imploringly at Theo, but he’s not looking at you. Instead, he gives the Sheriff what he wants.

‘He was smart!’ he yells, and the Sheriff stops, turning slowly back towards the cell. Theo averts his eyes, looking down as he finishes: ‘He was smart enough not to trust me.’

It visibly hurts Theo to say the words. To admit that he was untrustworthy, that the things he did in the past were wrong. That he spent so long doing the wrong thing, that it’s almost impossible to convince them that he wants to do the right one now.

But his admission works. The Sheriff swipes the keycard through the reader, and the door of the cell springs open. Theo tumbles out, and you’re there, pushing past the Sheriff and Liam, catching him in your arms as soon as he’s free. 

It’s how you wanted to greet him the first time, when he escaped from his first prison. But circumstances didn’t let you back then. You’re not letting them pass you up again.

You wrap your arms around his body, up under his arms and onto his shoulders, pulling him as close as you can. He smells of worried sweat, of someone who hasn’t showered in a day or two, but under all that, he just smells of Theo. Rugged, wild, untamed, but comforting, a port of sanity in all this madness. You bury your head into his chest, blinking the worried tears you didn’t even know you’d been holding onto into the fabric of his sweatshirt. 

He mirrors the gesture, enclosing you in his strong embrace, his powerful arms encircling you as if he can protect you from the world with just his strength.

If only that were true.

Thunder booms outside of the building, and you’re sure if you opened your eyes, lightning strikes would be illuminating the area, burning through the windows of the Sheriff’s station like miniature suns. 

Theo releases you slowly, and when you look up at him, he’s all business. He’s not focusing on you at all, but his ears have pricked up, and you can see the concentration lines on his face. 

‘We have to go, now.’ 

Reluctantly you release him, and the four of you return to the front office of the station. The unmistakable sound of the Ghost Riders’ horses’ whinnying echoes spectrally around the building, causing you all to stop. 

‘They’re here,’ Liam says, and any feeling of safety that you might have been clinging onto evaporates.

‘How close?’ the Sheriff asks, one hand going behind his back and pulling out his weapon. Another ghostly braying noise punctuates his question for him.

‘Too close,’ Theo confirms. 

The Sheriff is gearing up for a fight. You can see the adrenaline beginning to take effect, and wonder how long it’ll take to hit you. Because right now, all you can feel is fear. ‘How many?’ 

‘I heard a couple horses. Maybe more,’ Liam says.

Theo is listening intently again, hastening to add: ‘Five. I, I think five at most.’ 

‘Four of us. Five of them.’ The Sheriff loads his gun and heads for the door without waiting for the rest of you. ‘You ready?’

Theo catches his arm, dragging him back. ‘Wait, are you kidding? Us against five Ghost Riders?’ He’s not wrong; it’s suicide. But then, you, Liam, and the Sheriff all knew that before you got here. You knew this wouldn’t end with you being safe. It was just a delaying tactic, something to buy Scott time to save Stiles. To save all of you.

That doesn’t make it any less petrifying.

‘We can take 'em,’ Liam says, nodding. You’re not sure if that’s overconfidence, arrogance, or just wishful thinking.

‘Five of them?’ Theo asks again, still not realising that survival wasn’t the reason you’d come to the Sheriff’s station. You don’t want to be captured. You don’t want to disappear. But if you have to, at least you can go down fighting, with Theo at your side.

‘Four of us,’ Liam confirms.

‘Yeah.’

Fighting isn’t something you’re prepared for. Like Stiles, being the human member of the pack has usually meant you take a backseat to the physical side of things. Getting involved in a fight with a supernatural creature is a recipe for disaster, as a powerless human. The most you’ve ever done is back up Stiles, one of his spare baseball bats in hand.

Of course, there was that time you fought Deucalion with Theo’s chimera pack. But that had all been an elaborate ruse on Deucalion’s part, so did that really count?

The Sheriff pushes something metallic and heavy into your hands. You’re not surprised, and yet horrified to find that he’s given you a police issue revolver. It’s weightier than you expect, and it feels ungainly in your hands. 

‘What’s this for?’ you ask stupidly, but the Sheriff looks at you as kindly as he can.

‘Point and shoot. I’ve already taken the safety off. There’s a box of bullets on the counter. Usually I don’t give minors firearms, but I think this is probably a good time to make an exception.’

You try to smile, but the weight of the gun in your hand seems to weigh down your face as well. You hoist the gun up, holding it tightly in both hands, finger wrapped around the trigger as tightly as you can without firing.

Theo puts a hand on your shoulder. You look back at him and he’s smirking, the same smirk he’s worn since the day you met him, from the day he rushed to Scott’s aid, soaking wet and resplendent in the rain, until now.

‘If we’re going down on some suicidal last ditch Charge of the Light Brigade thing, I don’t want you shooting me by mistake,’ he quips, attempting to ease your mind. ‘You can do this,’ he tells you, and when he says it, you know it’s true. You feel your eyes set, your mouth tighten, and Theo’s eyes light up in recognition.

‘That’s the look I’ve been waiting for,’ he says, and you know exactly what he means. The fierce determination that grips you when your friends are in danger, the blazing rage within you that makes you want to protect them, no matter what. 

What feels like years ago now, Theo had confessed how much he loved that look. How much he wanted to be protected by that look. How awful it’d felt when it was turned against him, when you didn’t believe he was out to help you anymore, and you’d had to protect the pack from him.

And now, it’s all come full circle. And even though the power dynamic isn’t exactly equal (which, let’s face it, it never will be while you’re a human and he’s a chimera), it’s almost a partnership now. You’re protecting each other. Fighting side by side. Theo flicks his claws out in preparation.

You look back at Liam, his jaw set and his own claws out, and the Sheriff, face grim with his own gun gripped in one hand. 

He throws open the doors, and a steamroller of doubt flattens all of the confidence you’d just gathered within yourself.

The room beyond doesn’t contain five Ghost Riders. It doesn’t even hold ten. There are at Ghost Riders as far back as you can see, filling the atrium of the Sheriff’s station and dashing any hope of escape. They’ve all been standing stock still, waiting for the door to open.

As soon as it does, the assembled creatures scream their unearthly scream and a hail of bullets blazes through the doorway, tearing through the air towards you all.

You wince, expecting to be taken, to see a puff of green smoke and then nothing. But miraculously, none of the bullets hit you. Instead, they all converge on the Sheriff, and he explodes into a sickly mist and disappears. Theo grabs your arm and drags you to one side of the doorway, out of their line of fire.

Liam is on the opposite side, and copies Theo’s gesture, reaching across the open doorway to drag Theo across the gap, and you along with him.

‘Three of us,’ Theo gasps, as you all run for the back door of the station.

****

*****

Somehow, you’ve managed to make it to the hospital. Somehow, despite the chaos of trying to find the key for the police car, despite the Ghost Riders in the road, despite Liam and Theo sniping at each other all the way here, somehow you’ve made it.

Now for the next phase of Liam’s brilliant plan. At least, you hope it’s brilliant. Or even passable. Hell, if he even has a plan, that’d be great.

Turning on an ambulance siren wasn’t exactly what you had in mind.

The silence that pervades the town is cleaved in two as the siren shrieks out into the night, sounding even louder than usual.

‘What the hell are you doing?’ Theo asks, diving past Liam and reaching into the ambulance to quiet the siren.

‘Don't! Don't turn it off!’ Liam urges, pulling him away and shoving him roughly towards the hospital doors.

Theo is frantic, trying to shove past Liam and get to the ambulance again. ‘‘You want to bring them all here? Every single one of them?’

‘Actually...I think that’s the point,’ you realise, grabbing Theo’s shoulder from behind, startling him long enough so that Liam can explain. 

That's exactly what I want to do! ‘Cause if the Ghost Riders are here, that means they're not trying to get to Scott!’

‘So you don't care if they get to you?’

‘They're gonna get to all of us eventually,’

‘You! You're going first. That's the only reason I'm with you. Because while they're busy wrapping a whip around your neck, or shooting a hole in your head, I'll be running the other direction. I'm on your side as long it helps me!’ Theo shouts, and the venom in his voice is enough to make you take your hand off of him, as if he were suddenly red hot to the touch.

‘Trust me, I know.’ Liam shoves Theo in the chest once more, and the pair square up to each other as if they’re about to throw down for real for just a moment. Theo eyes the ambulance siren, and seems to decide that there are more pressing things to deal with instead, turning away and heading into the hospital. Liam eyes you as you push through the doors after him. You know exactly what he’s thinking - if Theo’s meant to be on your side, why would he say something like that?

‘He doesn’t mean it,’ you say hurriedly under your breath to him. ‘He’s just stressed, we all are. He’ll come through when we need him, I know he will.’

‘I’m not letting him out of my sight,’ Liam warns, and you nod in agreement. You trust Theo. But even if you do, you’ve been let down before. As much as you want to believe the best in him, it would be stupid to trust him blindly. You’ve all been burned like that before, especially you. And now is really not the time to fall prey to it again.

But somehow, you know. It’s all just an act. Theo’s not going to abandon you. Any of you. He may say it, but he doesn’t mean it. Maybe the Theo from before would have. Almost certainly would have. But this new Theo, the one changed by what he’s experienced, he wouldn’t.

Would he?

The three of you skid into the hospital foyer, and it is, predictably, empty. Theo comes to a halt in front of you and Liam, stopping dead in his tracks. There’s a faraway look in his eyes, and a haunted expression on the rest of his face, as if he’s seen a ghost. And not the kind with a whip and a cowboy hat.

‘Theo?’ 

You suddenly realise - Theo still hasn’t told anyone else about the torture he faced in Hell, the cyclical nightmare that never ended. It was all set here, in this hospital. No wonder he’s frozen. You step forward and slip your hand into his, pleased to see that he no longer feels like molten steel under your fingers. As he continues to peer down the corridor, he doesn’t squeeze back. It’s as if he’s not even here anymore.

He’s not. He’s back there, trapped again in the nightmare. Trapped with his sister, forever getting her revenge.

You reach up and kiss him on the cheek, trying to draw him back from his visions. He blinks rapidly at the touch of your lips and looks down at you, puzzled. 

‘It’s alright. We’re here. She’s not. Your sister isn’t here. We’ve got you,’ you whisper to him, low enough that Liam can’t hear you. ‘I’ve got you.’

His eyes slowly begin to focus again, zeroing in on your face staring at him. ‘I’m fine,’ he says reluctantly after a beat. ‘I just, thought I was somewhere else for a second.’

‘Where?’ Liam probes. He obviously learned his subtlety from Stiles, if he got his sense of duty from Scott. The stray thought about Stiles gives you hope - you’re remembering him too. Maybe whatever Scott, Lydia, and Malia are doing is working.

‘In a bad dream,’ Theo replies vaguely, with one final glance down the corridor. This time he squeezes your hand, holding on tightly as if you can anchor him in reality and keep him from slipping back into his torment.

****

*****

The morgue is even more eerily silent than usual. You’ve been here before of course, with Melissa or Argent, trying to work out your next steps in whatever craziness you’ve been wrapped up with the pack. But you’ve never been there alone, and it’s never been your last hope of survival.

Although, you’re not alone, you remember. Theo and Liam are here with you, barricading the door with a medical gurney. If only it were that easy to keep the Ghost Riders away.

‘The Ghost Riders go after the living. So we hide with the dead,’ Liam explains. It’s logical. It doesn’t make it any less creepy. He opens one of the corpse drawers, and what seems like an endless corridor of darkness extends back to oblivion. A pair of feet tell you that this drawer is already occupied.

‘I’m not getting in one of those,’ Theo states. He’s gone along with everything so far but on this, understandably, he will definitely not budge.

‘Me neither,’ Liam agrees, shutting the door and leaving the dead to their rest.

‘Not a chance,’ you agree, and you see the phantom of Theo’s nightmare dancing across the back of his eyes once again. This must be even harder for him than the rest of you - having to face his inner demons while being chased by literal demons.

‘You should've left me in the holding cell,’ Theo sighs, the hopelessness of the situation finally setting in. He peers out of the mesh window set into the top of the door.

‘I should've left you in the ground.’

‘Liam!’ you chide, but he’s not listening, again. There’s more bad blood between him and Theo than anyone else in the pack, except maybe Malia. Even Scott, who Theo had literally killed, was further along the path to forgiveness than Liam. 

Because Theo hadn’t hurt him. Not physically. He’d manipulated him into nearly killing Scott, nearly turning him against the person he looks up to most in the world. It would have been kinder to punch Liam in the face; instead, he’d almost broken the bond that meant the most to him. It would take a while to get over that.

‘Oh, really?’ Theo asks, rising to the challenge.

‘Yeah. Really.’

‘Guys, do you really think this is the time? The Ghost Riders could be here any minute, fighting each other isn’t what we should be doing right now!’

‘What do you think I was doing down there? Just hanging out with my dead sister? Having a good time catching up on childhood memories?’ Theo snarls, but Liam’s face remains impassive. He’d be great at poker, you think.

‘I think you were rotting down there,’ Liam states, and Theo’s face clouds over once again. Liam has hit closer to home than he realizes. You, on the other hand, know exactly how much that hurts. You move towards Theo for moral support, intent on giving Liam a piece of your mind, but he raises a hand; he can argue his own corner this time. 

‘Liam finally gets one thing right,’ Theo concedes. 

‘I also think whatever happened to you, you deserved it,’ Liam adds, matter-of-factually.

‘Is that right?’ He avoids looking at Liam, but you can tell that the little werewolf is hitting him right where it hurts.

Because Theo thinks he deserved it too. You ache to go to him now, you want to reassure him with your touch, like he does for you, but he doesn’t want it. He needs to appear strong now, in the face of these accusations, so that he can hold his head high and face them. 

Liam is closer to Theo now, not close enough to be right in his face, but close enough that his words are like bullets, striking Theo’s soul as much as his body. ‘When the Ghost Riders find us, I'm not gonna do anything for you. I'm not gonna help you. I'm not gonna save you. I'm gonna do exactly what you would do to me. I'm gonna use you as bait.’

Okay, enough is enough. 

‘Guys, we do not have time for this. You don’t mean that, Liam. And you didn’t mean what you said earlier either, about only helping us while it suits you, Theo,’ you whisper-shout at the pair of them. 

‘How do you know what I feel?’ Theo snaps, and you recoil once more from him. But it only takes you a second to recover and fix him with a glare.

‘Because I know you, probably better than you know yourself. You’re hurting. You’re in constant turmoil, struggling with who you are and who you want to be. So you’re saying things to push people away, to give you an excuse. But you don’t want that. You told me as much yourself, remember?’

Now it’s your eyes that Theo can’t meet.

‘Doing the right thing is hard. It’s much easier to just do whatever works out best for you. But that’s not you anymore. At least, you don’t want it to be. You told me that, too. So now, you two need to stop yelling at each other and get ready, because we’re all we’ve got left. I’m not babysitting the pair of you while the Ghost Riders are literally seconds away from erasing us from existence forever!’

Theo and Liam both look at you, flabbergasted but...impressed? They exchange a glance with each other, and a silent nod. Wait. Silence?

Theo’s head is cocked to one side. ‘You still hear the ambulance?’ he asks Liam. Then, more insistently: ‘The siren, can you still hear it?’

Liam clenches his jaw in response, ready for a fight.

‘They’re here.’

****

*****

The Ghost Riders are everywhere. The hospital is overrun, and for every one you take down, another three seem to spring up out of nowhere. So far you’ve managed to keep them back, thanks to Theo and Liam’s supernatural powers. But it’s only a matter of time before your luck runs out.

The revolver continues to weigh heavy in your hand. You didn’t get a chance to grab the box of bullets before you fled the police station, so you’ve got six shots, and that’s it. Instead, it’s been a useful bludgeon for hitting the Ghost Riders if they get too close.

Liam shoves a hospital-issue crutch into a door handle, trapping a Ghost Rider inside. He and Theo exchange a look, and for a second it’s almost as if they’re friends.

Maybe we can do this after all, you think.

And then the sound of spurs, echoing all around the hospital as if it’s coming from everywhere at once, reminds you of the futility of what you’re doing.

‘We’re never getting out of here, are we?’ you ask thin air. It’s a rhetorical question - you knew coming here in the first place was a one-way trip.

‘They’re everywhere,’ Theo observes somewhat redundantly.

‘Good,’ Liam replies.

The momentary camaraderie that they had experienced is gone now. Theo’s back to being mad. That seems to be his default setting today; at least it’s better than terrified, which is where you’ve been stuck all day.

‘Really? You really need me to remind you that getting captured by the Ghost Riders isn’t going to help save your friends?’ he snaps in Liam’s face. 

Liam’s eyes aren’t fixed on Theo - they’re looking at the shadows appearing at the end of the hallway. There are more on the way. 

‘We’re all getting caught,’ Liam says calmly, having already accepted what Theo is having trouble with - there’s no escape. Because that’s not the point. ‘You can do it while you’re running. I’m going down fighting.’

‘I’m with you, Liam. We’re all going down together. And then Scott, Lydia, Malia, and Stiles are going to come save us all. Because that’s how this works. That’s what Scott does. And he’s trusting us to keep them busy for as long as possible,’ you agree.

Theo still looks conflicted as another group of Ghost Riders round the corner, filling the hallway once again. Shakily, you raise the revolver.

Liam steps in front of you, claws extended, and roars. It’s a challenge to the Ghost Riders, and a roar of defiance. Come and get me, if you think you can handle it.

He runs towards the group, leaving you and Theo standing there alone.

‘We can’t let him do this on his own, Theo. We don’t have time to argue. It’s time to choose - are you with us, or are you with yourself?’ you ask him hurriedly. 

He looks at you, then back at Liam, almost on top of the Ghost Riders now, and then, remarkably, he smirks.

‘That’s no choice at all, really. At least if I go down, I’m going down with you,’ he says, and then snaps his jaws at the sky, fangs extended and eyes blazing yellow. Somehow, he manages to smirk around the fangs, and the sight of it fills you with confidence.

As Theo and Liam charge the crowd of Ghost Riders, you raise the revolver, point it at the head of the nearest Rider, and squeeze the trigger.

The recoil slams the gun towards the ceiling, sending a jolt through your arm that will no doubt leave you with bruises. But your shot flies true, striking the Ghost Rider in the head. It flies backwards with the force of the bullet, knocking another over as it falls.

Liam and Theo look back momentarily, more animal than human in the heat of battle, and roar their approval.

Five bullets left. 

Better make them count.

****

*****

You’re not quite sure how, but you’re winning. You’re actually winning. The revolver is empty, now just a lump of steel in your hand. But there are no more Ghost Riders to be seen. Liam stands triumphant over one, while another lies dead at Theo’s feet.

None of you seem to understand how you’ve managed it. You clap Theo on the shoulder and smile at him as widely as you can manage. He didn’t run. He’s here to fight, to fight alongside the pack. He made the right choice.

Even Liam seems to have changed his attitude. Fighting alongside someone can rebuild bridges quicker than talking, it seems.

He joins the pair of you, grinning like a kid in a candy store, and Theo raises a fist to bump against Liam’s own. Miraculously, Liam goes to return the gesture. Maybe there’s hope for these two to get along after all.

But you might not get a chance to find out. Suddenly aware of the sensation of being watched, you all turn as one to the end of the corridor. A familiar sight greets you - it’s packed with Ghost Riders, more than your eyes can take in, even more than you’ve already defeated.

Liam stands ready, and you flip the revolver in your hand so that you can swing it more easily. It takes a second for you to realise that Theo isn’t next to you anymore. You look back, frantic for a second that he’s been playing you all once again, abandoning you when you need him most, but he’s only moved to the end of the hall, slamming his finger into the elevator call button.

Liam roars at the oncoming Ghost Riders, but before he can run towards them, Theo has grabbed him around the stomach and dragged him bodily down the corridor, tossing him like a bowling ball into the now open elevator.

‘Don’t even think about trying that on me,’ you tell him firmly, planting your feet. He nods. He’s not going to leave you again. You promised him you’d never leave. He wouldn’t make you break your promise.

‘I’m sorry,’ he says, and before you realise what’s happened, he’s grabbed you around the wrists with his supernatural strength, pulled you off your feet and tossed you into the elevator too.

‘Theo! No! Don’t you dare! Don’t you dare leave me again!’ you shout, scrabbling towards the closing doors.

‘What are you doing?’ Liam asks from his position on the floor, and Theo turns back from the Ghost Riders one final time, locking eyes with you both, a smirk on his face to the very end.

‘Being the bait,’ he says, as the doors close and seal his fate.

Liam is already up on his feet, hammering against the elevator door. ‘No!’

‘Theo! Open the door! Don’t do this without me! Don’t leave me again!’ you bellow, but you know it’s pointless. You and Liam press your ears against the doors of the elevator, awaiting the inevitable.

The first sound you hear is Theo roaring. You’d know that sound anywhere; it’s like the sound of his voice, that deep, melodic voice that he’d once used to deceive but now used to reassure. Everything sounded better when Theo said it. 

That’s followed by the spurs of the Ghost Riders as they charge down the corridor towards him, and then the hail of gunfire, bullets whizzing through the air to find a home in Theo’s body.

And finally, that sickening poofing sound as he evaporates into green mist, leaving you alone again.

You drop to the floor of the elevator, clutching your chest, racking sobs ringing out as you feel your connection severed once more. It’s worse this time, like a wound that has reopened even wider than it was before. 

Liam is beside you, not sure what to do. He’s not good at emotional stuff, outside of anger. Or love, when he’s with Hayden. He just sits beside you, and you collapse against him, in the same way he did to you earlier that night when Hayden disappeared, the roles completely reversed.

You’re not sure how long you sit there. How long it takes for you to recover. It could be minutes, it could be hours. But slowly, your resolve coalesces. 

The sorrow hardens. The tears dry. And that chain in your chest that flapped around unconnected settles down, no longer probing to find the one you love. It knows it will reconnect, much quicker than it did before.

Enough is enough. You stand, and Liam looks up at you uncertainly. If you could see yourself from his perspective, you know you would see Theo’s favourite expression of yours imprinted on your face - fierce determination. ‘Are you okay?’ he asks.

You shake your head. ‘I’m not. But I’m going to be. We’re all going to be. We’re going to get them back. We’re going to get them all back.

‘We’re going to finish this, once and for all, even if we have to march into the depths of Hell itself. We’re going to get our friends, and the people we love back from beyond the rift, and we’re going to throw those Ghost Riders and that stupid Nazi werewolf out of our town, once and for all.’

How dare they take him. How dare they come to your town, take your friends, the man you love. How dare they do this. What right did they have to charge in here and tear your lives apart, without any thought to the consequences?

You don’t care that they’re unstoppable. That the Wild Hunt has been riding for millennia, and no one has ever resisted them before. You don’t care that you’re a human with no weapons, no plan, no hope.

They have Stiles. They have Scott’s mom, the Sheriff, and Allison’s dad. They have Hayden, and Mason, and Corey. 

They have Theo. 

And that means that they’ve made their final mistake.


	6. Reunion And Resolve

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Set during the events of Teen Wolf 06x10: Riders Of The Storm

Liam grunts, the tendons in his arms tight as he uses all his supernatural strength to force the elevator doors open. Slowly, slowly, the metal parts and the pair of you are released from your imprisonment.

You look around, hoping against hope that what you felt before was wrong, but knowing that it wasn’t. Theo is gone. Again.

The Ghost Riders are also gone. The hospital is empty, just like the rest of the town.

‘What now?’ Liam asks, shrugging. ‘Did you have a plan, or was it just swear revenge and look scary?’

Truth be told, you don’t have much of a plan, and Liam is right. Righteous fury would only get you so far. All you did know was that whatever was about to happen, you were going to do your best to make sure that Mr Douglas and the Ghost Riders paid for what they’d done.

‘Let’s get to the bunker, we need to find Scott. Hopefully they had better luck getting Stiles back than we did distracting the Ghost Riders. Once we regroup, we can reassess.’

‘So that’s a no then,’ Liam says sardonically.

‘It’s a ‘not yet, but I’m working on it, smartass’’, you shoot back, and he responds with a grim smile. 

The pair of you troop slowly out of the empty hospital, acutely aware of the fact that everyone else is missing. The hospital is devoid of patients, doctors, visitors; you’re all alone.

As you enter the foyer, Liam stops. You’re about to ask him what’s wrong when you hear it too. A clacking noise, almost out of earshot, as if it’s not even a noise at all, but the ghost of a noise you’ve heard once before. You both look around, trying to pinpoint the source. 

Liam sees it first. As he turns back towards the front desk, the noise gets more insistent, much more rapid. And now you can see why.

Above the desk is an arrivals and departures board, like from an old train station, or an airport. The top left name is spinning faster and faster, getting ready to fly off. But what is a board like this doing in the hospital? One name leaps out at you among the two screens, all of which have their trains suspiciously marked as ‘Arrived’ - Canaan. That can only mean one thing. This is tied to the Ghost Riders too.

Ominously, the spinning name finally stops. It reads, of course, Beacon Hills. You know what that means. Time is almost up. You tap Liam on the shoulder and he nods; you have to get out of here right now.

As you take the police car you ‘borrowed’ from the Sheriff’s station towards the bunker, the streets are as empty as the hospital. Houses are black squares lining the roads, completely lifeless. There are no dogs barking, or children laughing.

Beacon Hills is a ghost town, and you’re the only ones left haunting it.

As you drive past the high school, Liam points out of the window. His voice sounds even louder in the silence as he exclaims: ‘Look! What’s going on there?’

You slow the car to a crawl, and eventually a stop. Beacon Hills High has been home to its fair share of peculiarities these past few years, but this one really takes the cake.

The doors of the school are closed, and running from beneath them out into the woods is a freshly laid train track. It crosses the grass and pavement indeterminately, as if they aren’t even there.

‘What the hell?’ 

‘How did that get there?’ you wonder out loud. It can’t be man-made. There’s no way an entire track could have been laid like that in the time you’d been away from the school, surely.  
You look back at Liam, and his puzzled expression mirrors your own. 

‘Investigate, or get Scott?’ you ask him. He looks conflicted, as if he wants to know what’s going on, but isn’t sure if ‘creepy railway line’ is more important than ‘Ghost Riders have taken everyone in town’.

‘Scott first. He’ll know what to do,’ he decides. You’re secretly thankful - you weren’t looking forward to walking the empty halls of the high school.

There’s no way this was a coincidence. That arrivals and departures board at the hospital was definitely from a train station. Whatever the final stage of the Ghost Riders and Mr Douglas’ plan was, Scott needed to know about all of this.

****

*****

If you felt despondent before, then you feel downright wretched now. It didn’t work. Whatever Scott, Malia, and Lydia had done, it wasn’t enough. Stiles hadn’t returned.

And if they couldn’t rescue Stiles, what hope did you have of rescuing the one you love?

Now joined by Scott, you and Liam are back in the police car, driving towards the school. The eerie silence of the town continues to press in on you from all sides.

‘Are you sure it didn’t work?’ you ask again, and Scott gives you a weak smile.

‘I thought it did. I thought it was working. Lydia definitely did. We all remembered everything we could about Stiles; all of our memories came back. All the times we spent together, all of the feelings we had for him and about him. But nothing happened. He...he didn’t come back.’

‘It doesn’t change anything,’ Liam says abruptly. ‘We still need to stop Douglas. There’s still hope. There has to be.’

‘I hope you’re right,’ you tell him.

You lapse into silence then, the inside of the car as dead as the outside. Your thoughts spin around in your brain like a whirlpool, slowly draining away down a drain hole of despair.

You’ll forget him. One minute, he’ll be all you can think about. And then the next, you won’t even remember the name Theo Raeken. 

You won’t remember the curve of his mouth, the way he smiles or the way he smirks. The feel of his lips on yours, the taste of him. How his skin felt under your touch, the strength in his arms and how safe they made you feel. 

How it felt when you made love.

And even the things about him that made you sad would slowly slip away. The way he always seemed to know what to say, even if it was a lie. The way he’d made you feel so vulnerable, so easily manipulated. How wretched you’d felt when he was taken from you, how life felt so unbearable without him in it.

The chain in your chest, which had been quieted by your earlier resolve, begins to stir once more, probing for him. Desperate to find the one that should be on the other end, longing to restore your connection.

How much would it hurt when you could no longer remember the person you wanted to reconnect with? Would you ever feel normal again, or would life be an unending existence of pain, an itch you could never truly satisfy?

Was this how Lydia felt, now that Stiles was gone?

All of these thoughts and your memories of Theo spin faster and faster until your mind’s eye goes momentarily blind. Then, all you can see is his face plastered across your vision as if someone had pasted it to the inside of your eyelids. 

You wouldn’t forget. You refuse. Maybe that’s why Stiles didn’t come back - he’d been gone too long.

But Theo was taken less than an hour ago. There was still time. You could still get him back. All you had to do was concentrate. 

Liam and Scott are still quiet, leaving you undisturbed. You sit back, your eyes closed, Theo’s face swimming in front of you. You force yourself to focus, to remember every memory of him in painstaking detail. You’re reminded of when Theo entered your memories once before, what feels like so long ago. When you showed him how you saw him, and how he made you feel. This time, you have to show yourself.

You start from the beginning. The day he literally flipped into your life, protecting Scott from the chimera with the glowing claws. You remember how intrigued you were about this new arrival, how curiously he looked at you despite you hanging back, away from the pack.

How you had slowly gotten to know him. How you had spent time with him, away from the pack. Learning who he was, learning to trust him, and not be scared of him any longer. How you had both hurt the other, fumbling with your initial crushes, and how those crushes had blossomed into something more.

You force yourself through all of the pain that you felt when he betrayed you all. How you’d heard those chilling words, ‘I’m the first chimera’, and how a little part of you had died back then, and was only now coming back to life. How far your relationship had progressed, only to fall back to the beginning with four small words.

Playing double duty, trying to keep two packs afloat against the threat of the Dread Doctors and the Beast. How you thought everything could end perfectly, how you could keep all of the people you cared about alive. And then, the soul-crushing loss of seeing him disappear into Kira’s hole, how you thought you’d never see him again.

The hope that had sprung when you saw him in your dreams, how he’d reassured you that actually, defying all expectation, you would see him again. How that hope sustained you through the first few weeks of the Ghost Riders crisis. 

And then the jubilation at having him back, the tentative trust you gave him and tried to instill in all of your friends, who had no reason to trust him at all after what he had done. 

And finally, the last memory you have of him, that smirk he gave you as he threw you out of harm’s way and made the final sacrifice to save you, despite your promise never to leave him again.

You picture it all, the good, and the bad. Every memory of him, everything you can wring from your mind, a torrent of memories that would break any dam that the Ghost Riders’ magic could place in your mind. It would be enough. You would keep his memory alive. He wouldn’t be lost to you again.

If you concentrate, you can almost hear his voice, whispering your name.

But it’s only Scott. You must have dozed off, because you’re at the school. The train tracks that you saw before are still there - you didn’t imagine them. You pile out of the car for a closer look, but your eyes are flitting from side to side, hoping to see a rift, a white light, a tear in the fabric of reality like Lydia and the Sheriff described, and the silhouette of Theo coming back to you.

But there’s nothing. 

It wasn’t enough. He’s still gone.

****

*****

Stiles is here. Stiles is back. Somehow, even though everyone thought their efforts to remember him had failed, somehow Stiles found his way back from the Wild Hunt. He’s here, and right in the nick of time. With his help, you, Scott, and Liam were able to free Parrish from Mr Douglas’ control.

It’s a small victory, but it’s a significant one: it means you’re beginning to reunite your friends, and take away Douglas’ advantages. 

Having Stiles back gives you renewed hope. Because you’ve clawed back something that the Ghost Riders took from you. They haven’t won just yet. Your friend is back, and you couldn’t be happier to see his goofy face again.

It also means that, if Stiles came back, maybe...

But before you can explore that train of thought any further, Liam’s latest suicidal idea snaps you back to the dangerous reality you’re still living in. The reality that Mr Douglas is bleeding together with the reality of the Wild Hunt, creating the mash-up train station/high school you’re currently standing in front of.

‘I'm going into the Hunt,’ he tells the three of you. He wants to head into the Hunt and rescue Corey, whose power he theorizes is how Douglas is bleeding the dimensions together. Like Stiles said, it’s a solid theory. But this is the bad idea to end all bad ideas. Afterl the effort everyone went to to recover Stiles, now he wants to go in himself?

Thankfully, Stiles sees sense. ‘‘No, no, no. Liam, I think you're confused, we're trying to get people out of the Hunt,’ he explains, as if Liam is suggesting ice cream for breakfast and not a potentially fatal mission to another dimension.

‘He can get taken by a Ghost Rider,’ Scott suggests.

‘Are you seriously contemplating this?’ you ask both of them. Scott trusts Liam, and of course you do too. But this seems like an awful idea, and the pack has had some really awful ideas lately.

‘It's just... That's not a pleasant option. I'm speaking from experience,’ Stiles confirms, but Liam isn’t looking at him. Instead, he’s focused on the ground - more specifically, the green footprints of a Ghost Rider’s horse, squished into the mud of the grass and still smoking slightly. You hope he isn’t thinking what you think he’s thinking. But something tells you that’s exactly what he’s doing.

‘I...I don't need to get taken to get into the Hunt!’ Liam stammers, his face lighting up with exactly the bad idea you’d been dreading. You fight the urge to roll your eyes.

‘Okay. Seems like you got an idea, let's disc-’ Stiles begins, but Liam is already off and running, right into the now-open doors of the school. ‘Where are you going?’ Stiles calls after him futilely, since Liam doesn’t slow at all.

‘I'll be back!’ he yells, and then he’s gone.

‘Were we like that?’ Stiles asks, befuddled by Liam’s enthusiasm and apparent lack of self-preservation.

‘Worse,’ Scott confirms for him, and you laugh. It’s true. Ever since you’ve known them, they’ve been impulsive, reckless, and basically insane. But they’ve also saved this town more times than you can count, and become two of your best friends in the process.

You sigh, happy to have your friends back together, and not about to let something happen to another. ‘I’ll go after him,’ you tell them. ‘None of us should be alone right now, and Liam’s not going to be thinking straight if he runs into Hayden in the Hunt.’

‘Good call,’ Scott agrees, and Stiles nods too.

‘We also know from experience that werewolves in love make dumb decisions,’ he says, elbowing Scott, who looks sheepish. 

‘Be careful,’ the three of you say in unison, and then share a threeway smile. You turn away then, before you can change your mind, and follow Liam’s path back into the school.

****

*****

Considering the school is empty, you’d think it’d be easier to find someone in here, but Liam is nowhere to be seen. You’re scared to call his name, not wanting to attract the attention of any Ghost Riders - or worse, Mr Douglas. Instead you creep carefully through the building, peering around corners as you try to find one little werewolf.

What would Theo say, if he were here? Probably that you were insane, and that this is the last place you should be. But he’s not here. He’s gone. Again.

You grip your chest, hand closing over your heart as a new wave of pain hits you. It’s emotional but feels physical, like someone’s gripping your heart in a vice and squeezing. You take a deep breath, closing your eyes and flattening yourself against a wall to rest for a second.

You’re glad Scott and Stiles aren’t with you. They have enough to deal with, and you don’t want their reunion marred by your own relationship drama.

Stiles. He came back. He found his way back, thanks to Scott, Malia, and Lydia. He’s living proof that people can be literally remembered out of the Wild Hunt. So why hadn’t Theo? Did you need to be hypnotized too? But you remember everything about him. He’s only been gone a little while. 

Unless you can’t remember what you’ve forgotten about him, so you only think you remember it all…

The thought makes your head ache in time with your heart. You push the pain aside; you still need to find Liam. You open your eyes, push yourself off of the wall, and start down the next corridor, memories of Theo still playing back unbidden in your brain.

You pass a hallway you’ve already checked so you ignore it, heading across to another hall instead. But a light out of the corner of your eye draws you back; the entire building is on dimmer lights, so any brightness sticks out like a sore thumb.

As you back up, peering down the hall, your heart skips a beat. The air shimmers, and then seems to crack, revealing another world beyond. There’s a white light dancing behind the veil. And a shape, an indistinct shape coming towards you.

You can’t breathe. The vice around your heart tightens even more as the shape coalesces into a man. Not just any man. A man you know. The man you love.

Theo.

He tumbles forward out of the rift, for that is indeed what it is, and collapses. As soon as you realised who it was you were moving towards him, and you’re there to catch him just as he’s about to hit the ground.

He’s much worse off than the last time you saw him. His shirt is ripped and torn, sliced to ribbons by whip lashes from the Ghost Riders. He’s caked in blood, not all of it his own, and he’s breathing heavily, like he’s just spent the last few hours running.

But despite all of that, he’s smiling. He looks up at you, holding him up, and all traces of exhaustion disperse as you whisper his name.

‘You did it,’ he says breathlessly. ‘You brought me back.’

‘How...what...’ You can’t seem to put your thoughts into a coherent order. Instead, you’re focusing on the pain in your chest, which has lessened exponentially now that Theo is in your arms. Your connection has been restored. 

‘I could hear your voice, all the things you’d ever said to me, all the times you told me you loved me. It was like you were calling out to me, across the void to wherever I was. I just headed towards it, towards the light, and here I am.’

You hold him, squeezing him as tightly as you can, afraid that he’s a mirage, that he’ll disappear again in another puff of green smoke.

‘I thought I’d never see you again,’ you whisper into his shoulder, and you feel him return your embrace, the warmth of his arms around you a barrier against all of the evils that still haunt the night.

‘I’m sorry I made you feel that way. I’m here now.’

There’s a beat, and you’re not sure how long you sit holding each other. It’s not long enough. It never will be.

‘How long have I been gone?’ Theo asks, finally breaking the moment and the embrace.

‘Just over an hour. Stiles is back too, and Parrish. Scott’s plan worked. But now we’ve got a new problem.’

‘Of course we do,’ Theo says, his relieved smile replaced by a wry one instead. 

You tell him about Liam’s theory, how Mr Douglas is using Corey to bridge the gap between dimensions, and how Parrish told you that your last chance to save the town is to divert the train.

‘So Liam’s around here somewhere. He ran off with some hairbrained scheme about getting into the Hunt without being taken so he could rescue Corey, and I was trying to find him when instead I...found you.’

‘Sorry about that.’

‘Don’t be. If I’d found Liam, I wouldn’t get to do this,’ you tell him, and kiss him hard on the mouth. He’s dirty, and you’re sweaty, and it’s not romantic in the slightest, but neither of you care. Theo’s hand drifts to your cheek, pulling you in closer, hungry for more. 

‘Later. Once this is over,’ you swear, and he rests his forehead against yours, eyes closed momentarily.

Just then, the silence is broken by the sound of footsteps. At the end of the corridor, Liam pounds past and up the stairs to the second floor gantry, oblivious to the pair of you out of his eyeline.

‘Let’s go, before he gets himself hurt,’ you say.

‘Or does something reckless,’ 

‘Werewolves.’ You roll your eyes and Theo smiles once again. You help him to his feet, and together walk down the corridor to the bottom of the stairs that Liam had climbed. As you reach them, the sound of fighting echoes down the stairwell.

You exchange a look with Theo and the pair of you copy Liam, running up the stairs as fast as your tired legs can carry you. 

A Ghost Rider has grabbed Liam from behind, arms wrapped around his neck. The younger werewolf is thrashing wildly, driving back with his elbow, but the Rider’s grip is unbreakable. Beyond the railing, out on the lacrosse field, you can see the Rider’s horse waiting patiently for its master.

‘Go!’ you yell, and Theo shoots past you, fangs and claws extended and ready for battle, despite everything he has already been through tonight. He collides with the Ghost Rider and drives the claws of one hand into its back, releasing Liam from its hold.

Liam spills from the Ghost Rider’s arms to the floor and crawls away from it towards you. He coughs, air rushing back into his lungs and the pair of you watch Theo’s struggle with the Ghost Rider. 

‘Hey, you made it out!’ Liam calls as Theo wrestles side to side with the Rider, trying to keep it still enough to deal a decisive blow.

‘Yeah, barely!’ he shouts back. ‘What's the plan?’

‘Uh, steal the horse and get to the Hunt?’ Even as he says it, you can see that even Liam doesn’t think it’s a good idea on reflection.

‘What? That’s your best plan?’ You’re as incredulous as ever at the audacity of it. But...it just might work.

‘You're kidding, right? I went through all this to keep you from being taken!’ The Rider is bucking under Theo’s grasp, and even his considerable strength will give out eventually. You look around for something to use as a weapon, but there’s nothing in sight. You’re reminded once again that you’re the token human of the pack; something that always burns when your friends are in danger.

‘You need a hand?’ Liam asks him, but Theo pulls the Rider back with a vicious wrenching motion, accompanied by a bone-crunching sound that sets your teeth on edge.

‘I'm good,’ he confirms, shoving the Rider up against the railing. ‘Go already!’

Liam takes one look back at you, and you shrug. If he’s going along with this crazy plan, now’s the time.

‘Theo’s right, Liam. Go!’ He beats feet across the gantry, getting one foot up onto the top of the railing and leaping downwards. There’s a thumping noise - you hope it’s from Liam hitting the horse and not the ground.

You draw your attention back to Theo, who has released the Rider and socked it across the face with a vicious left handed punch. He spins on his heel and drives his foot into the Rider’s stomach, and finally it goes down, unconscious and no longer a threat.

‘You have to teach me how to do that,’ you tell him, and the pair of you look out over the railing to see if Liam made the jump. Below you, he looks even younger than usual as he grabs the reins of the horse and leads it in an uneven circle. At least he didn’t fall and break his leg.

‘Uh…Liam?’ you ask.

‘You know how to ride a horse?’ Theo completes your sentence for you, and you share a grin as he realises what he’s done. 

‘Not really!’ he calls back, but manages to get the horse on a straight path away from the school.

You and Theo lean on the railing, watching Liam disappear across the lacrosse field, clinging to the reins of the Ghost Rider’s horse for dear life. Eventually, he’s gone, and the pair of you are left alone again in the darkness.

‘Well, now what?’ Theo asks. ‘As smart as Liam’s idea was, I don’t really think we should try and find our own horses. And besides, if he does get inside, Mason and Hayden can back him up. We’ll be more useful out here.’

‘You’re right. I said I’d go with Liam into the Hunt, but that’s not really an option right now. I think we have to follow Scott and Stiles. We have to do what Parrish said - follow the train tracks, and find a way to divert the train.’

‘Do you think we’ll ever have a normal day in this town?’ Theo sighs.

‘Considering our track record? Definitely not,’ you say, thinking back on how chaotic your life has been since you joined the pack. But, that’s not always a bad thing. You couldn’t picture it being any other way.

‘Good,’ Theo says, complete with his trademark smirk. ‘Because apart from all the potential death, this is fun.’

You find yourself smiling alongside him, and shake your head. ‘Come on, we’ve got a train to catch.’

This makes Theo actually laugh out loud. ‘You’ve been waiting all night to say that.’

****

*****

The tracks lead you deep into the woods behind the high school. It’s late now, and the moon has risen high above the trees. It’s not full, thankfully, but it’s bright enough that you don’t need your cell phone flashlight to see where you’re going.

Theo trudges along beside you, the train tracks to his left and you on the right. His fangs have retracted, but his claws remain out, on alert, just in case. You grip a lacrosse racket that you’d retrieved from the locker room before leaving the school - it was no baseball bat, but it was better than nothing.

Claws would be even better though, you think, eyeing Theo’s as they glint in the moonlight.

‘Do we even know what we’re looking for?’ he asks, but you shake your head.

‘I expect we’ll know it when we see it. And with any luck, once we get wherever we’re going, Scott and Stiles will be there too.’

‘Do you know what you’re doing yet, after graduation?’ The question takes you off-guard; it’s the farthest thing from your mind right now. In fact, you’ve barely thought about it since this whole Ghost Rider thing started.

‘What? I’m just trying to keep you distracted. Calm the nerves,’ he says when he sees your quizzical look.

‘I guess I was planning on going to college,’ you tell him. It’s true enough. You hadn’t worked out where, but it was the basic idea. ‘What about you?’

‘I don’t even know if I’m going to graduate yet. Months in Hell will do awful things to your GPA, and I don’t think fighting Ghost Riders and saving the whole town will get us any extra credit.’

‘It definitely should; we’d all be doing as well as Lydia if that was the case.’ A small smile plays about your lips; Theo was right - it’s nice to talk about something that seems so inconsequential, at least in comparison to what’s currently going on. You feel better already.

‘Whatever happens, I’m not leaving you alone. I’ll tutor you myself if I have to,’ you tell Theo, although your own grades aren’t exactly perfect. ‘I’m not going anywhere until I know you’re coming with me.’

‘What if I don’t want to go to college?’ he asks. ‘If we’re being honest, I don’t really know what I want. Everything in my life up until recently was about...power. A pack. But that’s all changed now. I don’t want those things anymore. Or at least, not in the same way.’

‘You’ve got a pack. After all this, Scott would be crazy not to let you in.’

‘You know what I mean. Everything I ever wanted, I wanted for selfish reasons. And I was prepared to...do horrible things to get them. And now, it’s...kind of freeing, you know?’

‘Whatever you decide. We’ll do it together,’ you promise him.

‘Together. I like the sound of that,’ he admits. Suddenly he stops, raising a hand to stop you too. He concentrates, then puts one finger to his lips - quiet. 

You strain your own hearing as Theo cocks his head to one side. There are voices coming from a clearing up ahead. 

‘It’s Scott. He’s with Douglas. C’mon, we have to help him.’

‘Not on your own you don’t,’ says a familiar voice. You both snap around, weapons raised despite already knowing who the voice belongs to. From the undergrowth, Malia and, somehow, Peter emerge.

‘Where are Lydia, and Stiles? Are they okay?’ you ask quickly, and Malia nods. Theo eyes Peter suspiciously, and the older man returns the look in spades. 

‘They’re fine. They’re back at the school. But we have bigger problems right now. We have to help Scott.’

‘We were just about to do that when you showed up,’ Theo points out.

‘Not stab him in the back again? Or try and kill him when he’s weak?’ 

‘That’s what I’d do,’ Peter says, and the three of you round on him with pointed glares. ‘What? I’m not going to,’ he adds, raising his hand to placate you. ‘It was just a thought.’

‘I’m not sure how many times I need to say it, but Theo’s here to help. He’s been helping all night. And if you’re willing to trust Peter, I’m pretty sure you can trust Theo, at least until this is all over.’

Malia doesn’t like the logic, but she can’t argue against it either.

‘So we might as well all go together,’ you finish, brandishing your lacrosse racket once again.

‘Are you sure you shouldn’t stay here? Squishy human versus Ghost Riders doesn’t sound like it’ll end well,’ Peter observes, and you glare at him once again.

‘I’m not sitting on the sidelines anymore. If you guys are going, I’m coming too.’

‘Tough kid. I should have paid more attention to you. There’s a fire in your eyes I’ve not seen before.’

You risk a glance at Theo. He knows all about that fire, that determination to protect the people you care about that’s only gotten stronger since he entered your life.

‘Are we going to stand here and talk all night, or are we going to go help Scott?’ Malia asks, exasperated as usual. You nod, and the four of you march quickly and quietly along the track.

From behind a tree, you can see Scott. He’s in full alpha mode, eyes blazing crimson, fangs and teeth bared. Ahead of him in a rough semicircle are more Ghost Riders than you’ve ever seen before, all ready to shoot or whip him into oblivion. In the centre is Mr Douglas, also in full-on wolf mode. His eyes burn the same sickly green as the Ghost Rider’s smoke, and your stomach turns as you look at him.

Behind them next to the track is a lever; and beyond that the train track splits into two. One rail presumably leads towards Beacon Hills, and the other heads off into the woods, bypassing the town entirely. That lever is the key to everything. The way to save your friends and your town. All you had to do was get to it.

‘You of all people, Scott, should know what happens to a lone wolf,’’ Mr Douglas is saying, and Scott roars at him in return, daring him to attack.

‘He’s not alone!’ Theo yells in response, slipping out from behind the tree and attracting the attention of not only Scott and Douglas, but all of the Ghost Riders as well. ‘He’s got a pack!’

Malia rolls her eyes in anger and stalks out to stand next to him, declaring ‘And Theo’s not in it. But I am!’

Not exactly the rallying cry you would have gone for, but if it works for Malia…

Peter doesn’t help the situation either, popping out from behind Malia to add: ‘I’m not in the pack but...no one likes a Nazi.’

That’s more like it. Now it’s your turn. Your turn to expose yourself, to make yourself a target, to draw all of the bad guys your way. They’re going to take one look at you, realise you’re the weak link, and shoot you down where you stand.

But Scott’s out there. Your alpha, your best friend. He needs his pack. All of it. And that includes you, even if you’re terrified, even if you’re not that helpful in a fight. He needs you. He’s helped you, saved you, so many times before. And now it’s time to return the favour.

You step out next to Theo, lacrosse racket raised in defiance. ‘Get the hell out of our town!’

Nailed it.

Scott roars, Douglas signals the Ghost Riders, the four of you charge forward, and the fight begins in earnest. 

While you’re at range, the Riders pepper you with bullets. Somehow, no one is hit - not even you. You zigzag as you run, remembering some vague advice someone had mentioned before about avoiding snipers, and then you’re on them and there’s no time to think at all.

Within seconds, it’s utter chaos. There are Ghost Riders everywhere, and you’ve lost sight of everyone that’s meant to be fighting on your side.

You duck a Ghost Rider’s swing, jabbing the lacrosse stick into its stomach as hard as you can. It recoils, the uneven footing of the ground working in your favour, and you press the advantage, swinging the stick like a baseball bat and catching it under the jaw. It falls backwards, only to be replaced by two more.

Out of the corner of your eye, you can see Scott taking Douglas head on. Malia, Peter, and Theo are all fighting multiple Riders at once. They’re all perfect killing machines, well trained in how to use their claws and fangs to deal the most damage. And you have a piece of metal with a net on the end.

Theo flips through the air, scissoring his legs as he spins and strikes two Riders at once in a graceful yet deadly dance. Peter is more of a brawler, short, sharp strikes to vulnerable areas, while Malia is vicious and untamed, lashing out at anyone she can get her hands on.

You raise your lacrosse stick as the two Riders advance, and one of them lashes at you with its whip. You flinch back, but the edge of the whip curls around your weapon, and it’s yanked from your hands. You feel panic grip you once more and you fall back, hitting the ground hard.

The Riders fill your field of vision, and you brace for them to shoot you, whip you, stomp on you, anything. Instead, someone barrels into them both, knocking them flying. You struggle to your feet to see Theo gnashing his fangs at them, delivering a swift kick to each one’s face and knocking them out of the fight.

He leans over and plucks your lacrosse stick from the ground, tossing it through the air to you. ‘I think you dropped this,’ he says, smirking around his fangs. You nod firmly. It’s not lost on you that someone has had to save you again.

That’s going to be the last time.

You raise the stick, yell at the top of your lungs and run back into the fray. 

One way or another, this ends right here.


	7. The Next Step

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Set during the events of Teen Wolf 06x10: Riders Of The Storm

It’s over. Thanks to Scott and Malia’s quick thinking the train has been diverted, the Wild Hunt have left Beacon Hills, and they’ve taken Mr Douglas and his screwed up Nazi ambitions with them.

For the first time in a long time, Beacon Hills is safe again. Your friends are back; Your memories, too. All that’s left now is to go home, get some sleep, try to move past all the horrible things that have happened over the past few weeks, and maybe get back to some semblance of a normal life.

Miraculously, you haven’t taken too many injuries. Your lacrosse stick lays discarded on the ground somewhere, broken in two when you smashed it across a Ghost Rider’s back, and there’s a throb in your ankle that doesn’t seem to want to subside. You’ve got a black eye, and you’re pretty sure that there’s a bump on your head the size of a grapefruit under your hairline, but you’re too scared to check in case it’s even worse.

Scott, in comparison, fared much better. Fighting Douglas must have been hard, but Scott’s fought much worse than him. Once all of his stolen advantages were stripped away, Scott overpowered him pretty easily. His clothes aren’t even torn.

Theo however is hurt even worse than before. His shirt is practically in pieces now, and there’s fresh blood on his chin. He’s clutching his side gingerly, and he favours one leg as he limps over.

You pull Theo’s arm up over your shoulder, supporting his weak side so he can lean heavily on you. He’s heavier than he looks, but you’re happy to take the weight.

‘So, what now?’ he asks, spitting a globule of blood into the grass. He’ll heal, you know that. But seeing him in pain hurts you even more than your own; hasn’t he been through enough? Haven’t all of you?

‘Well, this has been fun. But I have better things to be doing with my life than fighting with some teenagers,’ Peter says, turning to go. He also hasn’t been hurt that badly - probably because he hung back and picked off the stragglers; he may have been here to help, but he’s still one to take calculated risks instead of reckless ones.

‘I’m pretty sure letting him go is going to come back and bite us in the ass, but I don’t have the energy for another fight,’ Scott admits as the older werewolf, the one who started all of this in the first place when he bit Scott that fateful night in the woods, disappears behind a tree.

Malia, surprisingly, moves to follow him. ‘I need to talk to him. There’s still so much I don’t get, so much he knows that he hasn’t told me.’ She’s also limping as Theo is, but the adrenaline rush of having to chase her father (that’s still difficult to wrap your head around, and if it’s hard for you, who knows what it’s like for Malia?) is enough to propel her onwards.

Scott doesn’t try and stop her. Once Malia gets something into her head, it’s very difficult to get her to stop. Like a coyote gnawing at a bone. ‘Be careful,’ he warns her. ‘You know how manipulative Peter is. Literally everything he says has two meanings, sometimes three.’

‘She’ll be okay, Scott. Malia can look after herself.’ Malia nods at you in gratitude, gives Theo a dirty look, and then follows Peter out into the woods. There are clearly some unresolved issues between here and Theo, but they’re not for you to ask about. Not yet. Malia will open up when she wants to. And Theo did shoot her, after all.

But if she can trust her father, maybe she’ll eventually trust Theo too.

‘So, home, I guess? Although we’ll have to swing by the school first and make sure Stiles and Lydia are okay.’ Scott shrugs nonchalantly, like he hasn’t just saved the entire town for the sixth or seventh time. You’ve lost count, but it’s been a hell of a lot for one eighteen year old to deal with.

‘Do I have to go back to the Sheriff’s station?’ Theo asks, and there’s a timidity to his voice that surprises you. If Scott tells him to go back to the cage, he’ll do it. He won’t like it, but instead of arrogance and attitude, he’s instead playing it honest and revealing his vulnerability. He doesn’t want to go back. Scott won’t make him. Surely.

As if in response to your thoughts, Scott looks at him incredulously. ‘What? No. Of course not. You helped us tonight. I’d say that gets you a free pass. For now, anyway.’

‘If Malia were here, she might say something different,’ Theo replies.

‘And I’d argue her into the ground,’ you say. ‘Like Scott said. You helped us tonight. You get to sleep on a bed for the first time since you got back. A hot meal. Whatever you want.’

‘I don’t even know if I have a home to go back to,’ Theo admits sheepishly. That’s another kettle of fish you need to unpack; but again, not right now. Now, it’s time to rest.

‘You can crash on my couch, if you want,’ Scott offers. ‘You might have to avoid my mom though. I don’t think she’d be happy to see you.’

‘That’s fair, all things considered,’ Theo concedes. ‘Thanks, Scott.’

‘Or...you can come home with me,’ you say, looking sideways at Theo but not meeting his eyes. His own widen in surprise.

‘Are you sure?’

‘I’m asking you to sleep over, not move in.’ You shift his weight on your shoulder so that you can support him better, and not hurt your ankle any further.

‘You don’t have to do that,’ Scott tells you. ‘I can keep an eye on him at my place.’

‘It’s up to Theo. Whatever he wants to do.’

‘I can’t remember the last time I had a choice where both were good options.’ He looks from you to Scott, and your heart is pounding so loud he can probably hear it through your chest.

Going with Scott would help cement his relationship with the pack; nothing says ‘you’re on the right side’ more than sleeping on the alpha’s couch. But if he comes with you, then you’ll finally get to be alone together and not in mortal danger for the first time since he got back.

After an agonizing few seconds Theo speaks and your heart feels like it’s going to grow wings and burst from your chest.

‘I appreciate the offer, Scott, but I think there’s only one place I’d like to be tonight.’

Theo’s not going back to the cage. He’s not going to Scott’s. 

He’s coming home with you.

*********

By the time you arrive home, Theo’s wounds are already beginning to heal. He’s walking under his own power, and now that he’s wiped the blood from his face he almost looks okay. Your ankle no longer pulses with pain, instead subsiding to a dull ache, like your face.

You silently close the front door, and begin to ascend the stairs. You’re halfway up before you realise that Theo isn’t following. Instead, he stands paralyzed at the bottom, uncertain.

‘Are you sure this is okay?’ he whispers, looking up at you. Suddenly he looks his age for the first time; you too often forget that, under all the drama and supernatural powers, you and your friends are just teenagers after all.

‘Of course it is. C’mon,’ you reply, descending the stairs again and gripping Theo’s hand to lead him up with you. However he still doesn’t move.

‘I feel...like I don’t deserve to be happy. After everything I’ve done, even the good things I’ve helped with tonight, it’s not enough. I shouldn’t get a reward for being a decent person for a change. For being the same as everyone else.’

‘You’re not the same. You’ll never be the same,’ you tell him and he flinches, his hand dropping from yours. You hasten to explain what you mean.

‘I don’t mean that you’re lost, that your past means you’re not a good person. I just mean that you’re different. What you’ve been through, none of us can ever know how that feels. I can only imagine what your life has been like; all the things the Dread Doctors did, all the lies they told you, how they twisted your mind into helping them with the Beast and the chimeras. And then, god Theo, you literally went to Hell. How are we supposed to wrap our heads around that?

‘But none of that matters. Or at least, not as much as you think it does. You’ve made the first steps on the road to redemption these last few days. Without you, we wouldn’t have been able to work out Mr Douglas’ plan, or save Liam, or stop the Ghost Riders. What you did before informs who you are. But it doesn’t define who you want to be, and who you’re going to become.’

Theo’s eyes haven’t left your face since you began talking, and now he finally looks down, almost out of shame.

‘It still feels wrong. Like I’m just...just cashing in on the pack’s victory. I don’t deser-’

‘You deserve to be happy. You do. Can you remember the last time you felt happy? Content?’

Theo thinks for a moment, then tentatively answers. ‘That night at the lake. With you. The fireflies, and our swim under the moon. And...what happened after.

‘Everything I’d ever had, I fought for, or I took with force. But you, you chose me. You wanted to be with me.’

You return to the bottom of the stairs and this time take both of his hands in yours, drawing him up as he no longer resists. ‘And I still do. You do get to be happy, Theo. The fact that you feel remorse for what you’ve done, that shows that you deserve it. You want to be better. That doesn’t happen all at once. But today, you proved it was possible. To me, to the pack.

‘And for that, I think you can have a little happiness.’

Finally convinced, he follows you up the stairs to your bedroom. This door too you click shut behind you. Alone at last.

‘I feel like all I do since I came back is fight and take showers. Do you mind?’ he asks, motioning to your bathroom door.

‘Of course not. Pretty sure I need one too. You go first.’

He cocks an eyebrow at you, but doesn’t question your decision. He’s done doubting you, at least for tonight.

He slides open the door to the shower and turns the water on full blast. Steam immediately begins to fill the room, obscuring him from view, but the heat doesn’t seem to bother him. He taps the door with his foot, but it doesn’t quite close.

Out of the corner of your eye, you can see a small pile of clothes appear on the floor through the crack between the door and the frame, and the sound of the water changes once Theo steps under the spray.

This is everything you’ve wanted. Theo was back. Stiles was back. Everyone was safe once again. The pack was together, and Beacon Hills was no longer under threat. Maybe you should take your own advice. If Theo deserved to be happy, then surely so did you?

Yes. Yes you did.

You slough off your dirty clothes like a second skin, the dirt of the forest and the sweat of battle making them cling to your body. You stand naked in the room, as vulnerable as you’ve ever been. But you’re safe. There’s no one left to hurt you. Least of all the man in the shower.

You take a deep breath and slip inside the bathroom. The screen door to the shower is closed, fogged up all over with the heat of the water. As silently as you can, you draw back the door and slide inside.

Theo’s eyebrows shoot up as he realises you’re there, but the shock doesn’t last for long. ‘I thought you wanted me to go first.’

‘I couldn’t wait any more.’

His wounds are already healing, as you thought. His skin is almost unblemished now, no scars, no imperfections. The water from the shower runs across his body like tributaries, outlining all of his hard edges. You wish you could be that water, getting to feel him so intimately, so entirely.

You step closer to him, the spray of the shower hitting you like a truck. Theo’s got the pressure as high as it’ll go, and the temperature somewhere just shy of boiling. It’s refreshing, and comfortably painful. It reminds you that you’re still alive, after everything that’s happened tonight. You can feel the dirt and grime being washed away, cleansing you of the marks of battle.

‘Are you su-’

‘Shut up, Theo. Shut up, kiss me, and let’s enjoy the happiness we both deserve.’

He doesn’t need telling twice. He fastens his mouth over your own, no more complaints or misgivings falling from his lips as they’re too busy kissing yours. Your skin is even more sensitive than usual, his fingertips brushing the nape of your neck, the small of your back, as his lips move down your throat to the tips of your shoulder blades and beyond. You gasp sharply, and he continues his quest for the area that brings you closest to ecstasy.

In response, you wrap your arms around him, hands clinging to his back for dear life as he lifts you from the floor of the shower, the pressure of his arms and the width of his back all you can feel as your bodies cling together. Your swollen ankle, pain completely obliterated and replaced by pleasure lifts from the floor and your foot traces the back of Theo’s leg, drifting upwards until it’s hooked around his waist.

You can feel the way his body tenses against you; He’s ready. You’re ready. You both deserve some happiness, so it’s time you take it. 

As many times as you can.

*********

Your eyes flutter open slowly, and the first thing you see is Theo looking wistfully at you from the opposite pillow.

‘Morning.’

You blink rapidly, trying to shake the morning fog. The memories of the night come back all at once; the shower. The floor. The bed. 

‘That was...wow,’ you tell him, the sheer enormity of the night ensuring that words fail you entirely.

‘You can say that again,’ Theo replies. He’s propped up on one elbow now, his bicep flexed as it holds up his head. The memory of running your tongue along it springs to your mind unbidden, and you desperately try to focus.

Because if you don’t, you’ll probably never leave this bed again.

You lay back, staring up at the ceiling. Theo inches closer, his breath hot on your neck. He’s not making this easy for you.

‘What do we do now?’ you ask him, and he lets out a small sigh.

‘I was hoping you weren’t going to ask that,’ he admits. ‘Because as much as I want to just stay here with you for the rest of my life...’ he runs a finger down the side of your neck and you shiver involuntarily. You look over at him again, but this time his face is twisted with conflict; not the emotion you expected to see.

‘What? Theo, what is it? What’s wrong?’

‘Nothing. Everything’s perfect. Last night was perfect. But I...I have to leave.’

Instantly you’re wide awake, all thoughts of more pleasure pushed out by this new revelation. You sit up straight in bed, and Theo looks up at you sadly. ‘No! I just got you back. Twice. Wherever you’re going, I’m coming with you. We promised.’

‘I wish you could. I don’t want to leave. But there’s something I have to do. Something I need to do. Then I’ll be back. And once I’m back, I swear, I’ll never leave your side again.’

‘Can you really make that promise right now?’

‘Yes. This is the last bit of unfinished business I have. Then I’m here. We can work out what the future holds together. But I have to do this.’

‘What could be so important that you have to leave so soon?’

‘I can’t tell you. Not yet. But when I get back, I promise I’ll explain everything.’ That’s not a satisfying answer, but the determination in his voice pushes aside any thoughts you have about probing further.

‘When do you have to leave? Right now?’

‘Before Scott comes looking for me. But...not just yet. If you want to do something memorable, that’ll keep us both going till I get back?’

You look at him, his perfect face, the swell of his chest, the outline of him pressed against your sheets. Waking up to him every morning would be a blessing even you don’t think you deserve.  
‘Can you just...just hold me? Please? Hold me, until you have to let me go.’

He doesn’t look disappointed, or sad. He just pulls the covers back and creates a hollow against him for you. You fill it automatically, as if your bodies were made to fit together, and he drapes an arm over you, holding you tight, a shield against the world and against the future. 

His hand is on your chest, and you cover it with your own, holding him against you like a lifeline, keeping you afloat in the tumult of time.

‘Will you be alright, without me?’ he whispers, his lips right behind your ear.

‘No,’ you tell him truthfully. ‘No, I won’t. But it’ll be different than before. I know I’ll see you again. It’ll hurt. But nowhere near as much as before. And the promise of seeing you again, of being able to do this again; that’ll be enough.’

‘But will you be safe?’

‘I don’t need you to protect me, Theo.’

‘I know that. You’re strong. You have Scott, and the others. That doesn’t mean I won’t worry.’

‘That reminds me. There’s something I need to do too, while you’re gone.’

‘Oh?’

‘I’m not telling you what it is, not now. We can both have our secrets. And then, when you come back, we’ll have something to tell each other about.’

‘You gunna make me write a ‘What I did over summer vacation’ paper?’ 

‘Maybe.’

‘Great. Homework.’

‘You’re sleeping with the teacher. I think you’ll pass with flying colours,’ you quip, and close your eyes, enjoying the comfort of having Theo close, his presence and his solidity a weight off your mind.

For the first time since the Ghost Riders arrived - no, before that. For the first time since Theo was sent to Hell, you feel like you can finally relax. You exhale deeply, and feel the tension seeping out of every inch of your body, every pore in your skin. You feel lighter already.

You want to enjoy this as much as you can, because you know it won’t last. Soon, sooner than you’d like, Theo will tell you it’s time for him to go. He’ll slip away, and you don’t know when you’ll see him again.

And once he does, you’ll be heading over to Scott’s, and a whole new trial will begin.

*********

He’s gone, again. One minute he was there, his arms wrapped around you like a cocoon and his body pressed against you, and the next he was gone, leaving your bed empty and your heart aching once again, a whispered ‘I love you’ and a depression in your pillow the only proof that he was ever there at all.

But this time, like you thought, it feels different. Your connection remains intact. Even though he’s not with you, probably not even in town right now, you can feel him. The reassuring pressure in your chest is there, a constant reminder that your love binds you to him, and him to you. And his promise rings in your ears - he’ll be back again. This is the last time he’ll leave you alone.

You walk up the path to Scott’s house, your ankle still aching like the rest of your body, but the pain reminds you of what you’ve just been through. That you did, in fact, come through it. The Ghost Riders, Mr Douglas, losing Stiles, losing Theo - none of it broke you, and that’s a thought worth hanging onto.

But while knowing that is comforting, it isn’t enough. You weren’t enough. Too many times over the years have you had to be rescued by your friends, when all you’ve ever wanted to do was protect them. Last night’s battle with Douglas and the Ghost Riders was yet another stark reminder of that.

If you want to protect your friends, your pack, the people you love and care about, then there’s something you can do to be better. Something that will give you the power to do just that. All it’ll take is Scott.

You smile at Melissa as she opens the door. In all the confusion, you’d almost forgotten that she, and many of the other adults in town, had also been taken. Scott must be thrilled to have her back and, you have to admit, seeing her again makes you smile too.

‘He’s upstairs. After saving the town, again, I thought it’d be best to let him sleep for a bit,’ she confides in you.

‘A lay-in is the least he deserves. I’ll be quick, I promise. I just need to ask him something.’

‘Let me know if you need anything.’

You climb the stairs and knock on Scott’s door lightly. You wait a second, then push the door open as slowly as you can, in case Scott’s still asleep. 

In fact he’s awake, fully clothed but sitting on the edge of his bed as if he can’t decide whether he wants to get up or not, as if the gravity of what he’s done yet again is keeping him rooted to the spot.

‘Hey. You okay?’

‘Hi,’ Scott sighs. ‘Yeah. I think so. Just...reflecting, you know?’

‘I get it. How are you feeling?’

‘I’m fine. Werewolf healing and everything.’

‘That’s not what I meant. You did it again, Scott. You saved the town, and everyone in it.’ You sit down next to him on the bed, and he looks over at you expectantly.

‘I know it’s a burden. It’s hard enough just being on the sidelines, so I can’t even begin to know how much of a weight this all is on you. But every time, you rise to the challenge. You stop whatever bad thing rolls through the town trying to kill us all. You always win. We always win.’

‘But what if I don’t? What if, one day, something arrives that’s too strong for us to stop? And how am I meant to leave for college, when something like that could turn up at any time?’

‘It’s not like we’ll be leaving the town unprotected. Liam’s here. And Mason, Hayden, Corey. Deaton won’t leave them to fend for themselves. And the Sheriff and Parrish, Argent, your mom. They’re all here.’

‘But I won’t be.’

‘Not everything is on you, Scott. You may be the alpha, but that doesn’t mean you have to do this alone. That’s what I wanted to talk to you about, actually.’

Scott quirks an eyebrow at you, but waits for you to go on. It takes you a minute to pluck up the courage. You know what you want. But actually saying the words is a different story.

‘When Stiles was taken, you were going to bite him, right? And back when Peter was still the alpha, he offered the bite to Stiles too. But he always said no.’

‘He didn’t want it. He’s never wanted it.’

‘But if he did, would you do it? Would you bite him?’

Scott looks puzzled now, as if he’s never considered it before, as if the possibility of someone actually asking for the weight of being a werewolf to be placed on their shoulders is absurd. ‘I guess, if he was sure, I’d do it. I’ve only ever made two betas before, and one of those was an accident, and the other was to save her life.’

‘Liam, and Hayden. And they’ve turned out alright, right?’

‘Sure. They’re the best. Liam’s learning fast, and Hayden’s right there beside him. They’re good for each other. What’s your point?’

You take another deep breath. This is it. ‘The point is, what if there was someone else who wanted the bite? Someone who had never asked for it. Who didn’t need it to save their life. But who wanted it so that they could use the power to protect the people they care about?’

Scott’s eyes widen in realization. ‘You want me to bite you?’

‘I want you to bite me. I want to help.’

‘You do help, you-’

‘Let me finish, Scott. This is hard enough to ask for without having to stop. Let me explain, and then you can question me. And if you don’t want to do it, I won’t push you. I won’t ask again. But let me make my case before you decide.’

‘...Alright.’ He falls silent, and you turn your body to face him properly, so he can read the intent in every line of your face, every movement you make.

‘I’m tired of being on the outside. I know I’m part of the pack; I’ve never doubted that. But I always feel like a liability. I know you don’t feel like I am, but let’s face it, I’m useless in a fight. I’m not smart like Stiles, and I’m not a hunter like Allison was. I have my own skills, I know that too. I can talk to people. I’m good at defusing situations without having to fight. And hey, I did a pretty good job undercover in Theo’s pack before. But I can do more. I can be more.

‘I care about you all so much. I’m tired of watching you all risk your lives for me, when I want to do the same for you. I don’t want to fight. I don’t want to have to hurt people. But I also want to be able to, if I have to. I don’t want to be running into battle with a lacrosse stick and hoping I don’t get killed. Or worse, get one of you killed because you’re too busy trying to protect me. I want to be right there, fighting beside you all. On equal footing.

‘I said this was a burden for you, and I know that’s true. So I want to share it with you. You’re the alpha; I don’t want to take that away. But maybe, with some more supernatural friends on your side, you won’t have to shoulder all those responsibilities alone. And I won’t be one more thing you have to carry along the way.

‘This isn’t just a snap decision. I’ve been thinking about this for a long time. But it took the last few weeks, and last night especially, to finally force me to ask.’

Scott’s true to his word. He hasn’t said a word throughout your speech. And now he looks pensive, mulling it over in his mind.

‘And you’re sure you want this?’ 

‘More than anything.’

‘You know it’s hard. You’ve seen me, Liam, Malia, what we have to go through.’

‘Trust me Scott, I’m well aware. It’s not an easy path. But it’s the one I want to take.’

Now he looks as if he’s eating something that doesn’t taste very nice, but he can’t quite spit it out. It takes him a second, and once he voices his next question, you understand why it was so hard to say.

‘Don’t take this the wrong way, but you’re not just asking this because of Theo, are you?’

You’d anticipated this question. In fact, you’d asked yourself it too. It was a good question; but you have a good answer.

‘I won’t lie - the thought had crossed my mind. Did I just want to be a werewolf so that I could feel closer to him? That’d be nice. But that’s not the reason. I love Theo. And he loves me. But he loved me before and, I hope, he’ll love me after.’

‘You haven’t told him about this?’

‘No. This is my decision to make, not his.’

‘If I do this, there’s no going back. You can’t suddenly change your mind. And it’ll make you strong, but it’ll also make you a target. Make you vulnerable.’

‘I’m already a target by association. And I’m already vulnerable by not being able to take care of myself, and our friends. But this will mean I can protect myself. And the people we care about. If it makes me more of a target so that you and the rest of our friends don’t take all the heat, that’s not a trade-off I mind making.’

Scott weighs it up in his mind. You’ve never asked him for anything like this before. It’s a big ask. It’s as much a danger for you as it is for him. Not everyone survives the bite. But, somehow, you know you will. There’s no way you’ve faced down alphas, chimeras, Dread Doctors, Ghost Riders, and more to die from something like this.

‘Are you sure? I know I can’t say anything to change your mind. But I just want to know that you’ve thought this through properly. Like I said, there’s no going back.’

You nod firmly. ‘I want this, Scott. I want to help. I want to be strong enough to protect all the people we care about.’

‘Okay. This is going to hurt.’ 

He turns away for a moment, and a shudder runs down the length of his body. When he turns back, he’s gone full alpha. The crimson of his eyes burns into you like pinpoint laser sights, and the ridges in his brow give him an almost feral quality. You remember what it feels like to touch a brow like that, and wonder if your own face will look that intimidating once you change. He opens his mouth, revealing rows of razor sharp fangs, poised to bite and tear.

‘Ready?’ he asks, and you roll up your sleeve, offering your forearm to him. You fight the urge to turn away as he takes it in both hands; if he’s going to do this, you want to see it all happen.

Scott takes your arm and raises it to his mouth. You exchange one final look, and then he closes his jaws around it.

The pain is instantly excruciating, like a hundred needles driven in at once across your skin. Defying belief, the pain actually increases once Scott releases his hold on you. Your skin burns as if branded, and it feels as if your blood is boiling within you as it courses through your body.

You curl in on yourself, arm clutched tightly against your chest and topple sideways onto the bedroom floor, your mind a whirlwind of pain. All you can register is the fire in your arm, the poison in your veins, and the sound of Scott somewhere very distant calling your name.

*********

Beacon Hills looks beautiful at night. From the hill overlooking the town, you can see everything. All of the lights flashing, all of the cars whizzing their way through the streets, all of the people making final stops before retreating to the safety of their homes.

Everyone in Beacon Hills knows that full moons aren’t a good time to go outside. None of them will admit to themselves why. It just seems like an unspoken rule that, once a month, everyone makes sure they get home early, and maybe lock their door.

But not you. Not anymore.

You stand on the hill, looking down at the town you’ve sworn to protect. If you could see yourself, you know that your eyes would be a deep yellow - the sign of a beta werewolf. Your brow is furrowed with deep, animalistic ridges, and your fingers now end in deadly, hooked claws. 

Everything is heightened - sight, smell, hearing; you’re experiencing the world in much greater detail than you ever thought possible. The perks of being a werewolf were worth the growing pains it had taken to get to this point.

It wasn’t easy, like Scott said. It took time to grapple with your new senses, make them work for you instead of against you. The transformation had been painful at first; it had been intimidating to feel your body changing almost instantaneously around you. But with Scott’s help, and advice from your other supernatural friends, you’d come through the worst of it. Tonight was the final test.

The full moon has risen above you. This is the first time you’ve experienced it after your transformation. You didn’t want to admit it, but you were worried that this would be harder than it is.

You’ve seen other werewolves struggle with the full moon. Scott, when he first turned. Malia, who even now sometimes goes off the rails at this time of the month (although she’s much better now that Stiles is back). Liam, who spent months tied to a tree just in case he ran around naked...again. 

But you’d seen them go through this. You knew what to expect. And you know, after watching them, how you get through it. You need an anchor - a person or an idea that you can latch onto, to give you something to focus on and keep you in your right mind.

Thankfully, you have both. 

The pressure in your chest, that warm feeling of love and hope reminds you that Theo is out there somewhere, doing whatever he needs to do so that he can come back to you. Scott wasn’t particularly pleased that Theo had left - but you’ve assured him that it’s for the best, and he’s inclined to agree. He may still be sceptical of Theo himself, but he trusts your instincts, especially where Theo is concerned.

The thought of Theo helps keep the moon’s influence at bay. You can feel it tugging at you, making you want to run, hunt, rip, tear, but Theo’s image is fixed in your mind. His smile, his smell, the way he held you the morning before he left. It’s enough to tamp down the bloodlust.

And even if it wasn’t, the sight of Beacon Hills would help too. You wanted this power for a reason - you wanted to help the people of the town. Protect them from the things they can’t protect themselves from. In a way, it’s almost like you’ve adopted Allison’s motto for yourself. You hope she’d be proud.

And most of all, you wanted to protect the people you care about.

You look left and right, the figures of your pack coalescing out of the darkness in vivid colour thanks to your newly enhanced eyesight. You knew they were coming - most of them you heard a while ago, making their way through the trees.

Scott looms up next to you, a proud grin on his face around his fangs. Alongside him are Malia, Liam, and Hayden, each wearing their supernatural game faces. Just out of sight, beyond the tree line, Lydia, Stiles, and Mason sit waiting by Stiles’ jeep and Mason’s car, ready to take you all home after your midnight run. 

Once you go off to college, or whatever the next phase of your life entails, you might not get to do this again for a long time, so you want to enjoy it while you can.

‘You ready to do this?’ Scott asks, and you flash him a grin of your own that you know is full of fangs. He returns it in spades, and the pack close in around you.

‘Once around the woods, last one back to the cars buys burgers for everyone,’ Scott says, reiterating the terms you’d agreed on.

‘Don’t stop and chase any deer - that’s how I lost last time,’ Malia warns you. Somehow, you don’t think that’ll be a problem.

Lydia now stands by the starting line and the five of you line up in front of her, ready to run. 

‘May the best wolf...or coyote, win,’ she says, raising an arm. She whips it through the air, and then you’re all off, sprinting as hard and as fast as you can.

The thrill of the adrenaline, the power in your limbs as they pump up and down is exhilarating. Your senses are sharper, your reflexes quicker, and your sense of determination stronger than ever. This feels right. This is what you were meant to be. Who you were meant to be with.

The pack is strong. The pack is united. And even when you all go off to different corners of the country, nothing can change that. You were part of the pack before, it’s true, but now you feel even more intimately connected to your friends. This bond is something you all share, that very few people around the world will ever experience. Now, you can keep them safe. Now, you’re strong in body as well as spirit.

And when Theo comes back from wherever he is right now, you’ll be able to protect him, too.

**TO BE CONCLUDED  
AUGUST 2017**


	8. A Multitude Of Maybes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Set during the events of Teen Wolf 6x11: Said The Spider To The Fly

Time passes. It passes much too quickly, and soon it’s almost time for you to admit to yourself that your final high school summer is over, and the school year at Beacon Hills University is about to begin.

Where have the past few months gone? you wonder, looking around at your bare bedroom and the suitcase settled in the centre of your bed, now overflowing with all your clothes and trinkets that you can’t bear to leave behind. 

Beacon Hills University isn’t that far away. You could probably commute if you wanted to. But you feel like the independence and the fresh start that a home away from home could afford you are worth uprooting yourself for, at least for now. Plus it helps you to delude yourself into thinking that you’re going through the same kinds of changes as your friends.

Stiles is already gone, off to Virginia to begin his FBI training, thanks to Scott’s special agent father. Malia is packing herself, eager to begin a gap year in Paris and who knows where beyond that. Scott and Lydia are preparing to head off to their own universities, although theirs are at least over state lines instead of basically in your backyard.

It’s a time of change for everyone, no matter how small. And yet, you’re not quite ready to give up everything you’ve been holding on to. There’s still a lot of memories in Beacon Hills, a lot of unfinished business to attend to. And, most importantly, still someone you’re waiting to see again.

It’s been months since your last rendezvous with Theo. Months since the battle with the Ghost Riders, and the night that still plays out in your memory every time you go to sleep, one hand outstretched to the opposite side of the bed, aching to feel his presence under your fingertips once again. Months, and you haven’t even had so much as a text message. 

You catch yourself looking every time you’re around town, hoping to see him out of the corner of your eye coming towards you, ready to reunite and never leave your side again. But it’s not to be. For months you’ve looked, for months you’ve hoped to see him again, and for months you have been disappointed.

It’s painful, knowing that he’s out there somewhere, and knowing that he’s choosing not to spend the time with you. That he can’t, won’t confide in you about whatever secret mission he headed off to. But it’s a different kind of pain in a lifetime full of it - a pain that you’ve learned to manage.

It’s like a dull ache, in the back of your mind. A constant pressure reminding you that something is wrong in the world, that you’re not where you’re supposed to be.

When Theo was in Hell, consigned there by Kira and her skinwalker magic, it was devastating. And then again, when Theo was taken by the Wild Hunt, it was unbearable, having just got him back only to lose him again.

This time however, you can delude yourself into thinking you’re managing it. You’ve spent the summer helping your friends prepare for their own trips and summer activities - helping Scott plan lacrosse practice, helping Malia choose outfits to take with her to Paris, even helping Stiles work out what all the little pieces of a gun are for when he has to do that inevitable exercise of dismantling and reconstructing his firearm like all of the movies have taught you. But it’s all a distraction.

Once you’re left alone with your thoughts, all you have to do is take one look at your phone to know that he’s still not here with you. You and Theo have never managed to take a proper picture before - never really had the time, what with all the life-threatening crises that hit Beacon Hills on an almost regular schedule - so you don’t have any clear pictures of the two of you together to have as a phone lockscreen. 

All of the images you do have of him have been stolen in the quiet moments, little shots of him in the most natural positions - asleep; with a mug of a coffee in one hand and a protein bar in the other; behind the wheel of his car, or with his head in a library book. Some of these images you can’t even remember taking. But you scroll through them everyday, without fail, just to remind yourself of what he looked like. To remind you that he’s coming back. He promised. But that promise doesn’t make this any easier.

You sit sadly on the edge of your bed, the suitcase sliding across to rest against your back, like it’s telling you that it’s time to go. It’s time to move on. It’s time to admit that he’s not coming back - Theo has forgotten all about you.

You shake yourself away from these dark thoughts. He said he’d be back. He promised. And there had to be a good reason why he hadn’t returned yet. Whatever he was doing, it wasn’t finished yet. And when it was, you would be here, waiting for him.

That was why you’d taken the offer of classes at Beacon Hills University. It was hardly the most prestigious place in the country, or even the most prestigious that had been interested in you - but you knew you couldn’t go far. Whatever came next, you and Theo would be facing it together, and you couldn’t do that if you were in opposite parts of the country. 

So Beacon Hills University it was. You had enrolled in a handful of classes, a spread of different things from social sciences and economics to chemistry and ancient mythology, all the while keeping your major undeclared. Another decision that you didn’t want to make until you’d spoken to Theo. 

He might not even want to stay in Beacon Hills. And if that was the case, then you were ready to up stakes and run with him. You’d also spent the last few months working as many shifts as you could rack up in the nearby convenience store, and had saved a tidy little pot of start-up money. Whatever Theo wanted to do next, whatever it took, you were going to make sure that you were able to do it together. 

Your parents weren’t sure what to think. All this uncertainty was bothering them, but they knew it was bothering you just as much. For now, they were content to let you steer your own course - you were still going into higher education, you weren’t on drugs or acting out as far as they could see, so they had stepped away from your decisions and were...if not happy, at least resigned to letting you make your own mistakes, and hopefully being there to catch you if you fell.

You couldn’t talk to them about Theo. About your mysterious vanishing boyfriend who always seemed to be here one minute and then gone the next. 

You’d taken your problems to each of your friends in turn, seeking advice, guidance, reassurance, anything, and received a little of each. The memories return unbidden, your friends’ faces swimming in your minds eye, repeating what they had told you previously. You comb back through their words, hoping to find something that you’ve missed, some word of comfort that will help you get through tonight, tomorrow, and all the days between now and your reunion with Theo.

‘He’ll be back. He knows how you feel about him, there’s no doubt about it. And he feels the same. Whatever he has to do, it must be important for him to spend so much time away from you. But you’ll see him again, I know you will,’ says Scott.

‘I’ve never trusted him. Even now, knowing what he did to help you guys stop the Wild Hunt, I still wouldn’t trust him to watch my dog, let alone with one of my friends. But you trust him. You love him. And if he has any sense, he’ll find his way back to you,’ adds Stiles.

‘If he doesn’t come back, I’ll find him, beat the living crap out of him, and drag him back to you so that he can apologize. And he won’t like it if I have to do that,’ Malia warns succinctly.

Lydia is next, offering her sage advice on boys. ‘I’ve dated bad boys, I’ve dated good boys, I’ve dated...Stiles. And all of them have one thing in common - if they love you, and you love them, they’re all each of you can think about. And I can tell from one look at your face that that’s true for you. You love him. There’s a connection there, and that’ll be enough. He’ll realize what he’s missing, and he’ll come back to you. I promise.’

And even Liam, hardly the expert on love, had something surprisingly poignant to add. ‘I know absolutely nothing about girls. Like, negative amounts. But somehow I’ve found Hayden. Or Hayden found me. Something like that. So all I can tell you is that, if it’s meant to be, it’ll happen. If he’s meant to be the one you’re with, then he’ll come back to you. And if he doesn’t, then you’re not. And that’ll hurt, but you’ll be stronger for it.’

What you did to deserve your friends, your pack, is beyond you. But they’re exactly the kind of people that you need right now, and each of them knows exactly what to say. You’re so glad that they’re still here to help you right now, which makes the fact that almost all of them are leaving even harder to deal with.

Of course, there were other things going on that you’ve needed advice on, too. Like the fact that you had finally made the transition from human bystander to member of the supernatural community yourself.

After the battle with the Ghost Riders, after all the times your friends had saved you, you were tired of feeling powerless. Of being unable to protect the ones that you cared about, having to be a burden on them when the supernatural came along to cause trouble and all you could do was get in the way.

So you had asked Scott one of the few things you had ever asked of him. You asked him to bite you - to bring you into the pack fully. To finally make you a werewolf. And Scott, being Scott, had done as you had asked.

Luckily, you had had a few months practice with Scott, Liam, and Malia before having to worry about tackling the full moons on your own. It was still strange, being able to see, hear, smell more than ever before, but the full moon made it even more intense, and all you wanted to do was run.

No, that was selling it short. You didn’t want to run - you wanted to search. The most overriding feeling in your body came to the fore when the moon shone full, and it was all you could do to keep yourself from running, running as hard and as far and as fast as you could until you found Theo once again.

Scott had described it best - Theo was your anchor. Like Allison had been for him, and Hayden for Liam, Theo was the one person that sprang to the front of your mind whenever you let it wander unbidden. Your friends were perfect, the best support you could ever ask for. But Theo was different. Theo was your first love, your true love, and the only person missing from your life.

So it made sense that, when you needed your anchor the most, you would seek them out. But of course, you couldn’t just go running through Beacon Hills looking for someone who more than likely didn’t want to be found. Especially not with glowing eyes, fangs, and claws on show for everyone to see.

Thankfully, Scott had helped you get this impulse under control. Your first true test would be the full moon after everyone had left for college; but Scott had left you his mom’s cell, the Sheriff’s cell, Parrish’s cell, and even Argent’s cell if you felt you couldn’t handle it and needed help. And Liam would still be here, too.

But of all the numbers you had, they still wouldn’t be the one you’d want to call.

You’re not sure how Theo will react when he finds out what you’ve done. Would he be happy, knowing that you can take care of yourself now? Worried, that you’ve made yourself a target? Or could he even be jealous? You know how much Theo had wanted to be a real werewolf, so would he envy you now that you were, and he was still just a chimera?

You hope that he’ll be happy. That he’ll understand. And hope is all you can cling to, until you finally see him again.

You reach back and click your suitcase closed, the finality of the clasp snapping shut like the final nail in the coffin of your love. But that’s not the end. You know there’s still more to this story. Theo’s still out there and, one day, you’ll see him again.

*********

You park your bike in the high school parking lot, chaining it up tight, and walk towards the closest entrance. As you arrive, you see Liam and Mason coming from the opposite direction. They wave in greeting, and you smile despite your earlier feelings of melancholy.

‘Thanks for meeting us here,’ Liam said, and you shake your head in dismissal.

'It’s nothing. You guys have senior year coming up - you’ll need all the help you can get, trust me.’ Liam gulps comically, and Mason laughs out loud. It’s nice, you think, to see that these two have some semblance of normalcy, for one more year at least. 

With senior year fast approaching for the two of them, you have volunteered to help them plan out what they’ll need to be doing, and when. When to start cramming for exams, how to best manage lacrosse practice and such. Senior year was hard enough for you without the supernatural ruining everything as it was bound to do, so you thought giving them a little groundwork wouldn’t hurt.

‘Did Malia make anything of those rats you wanted to show her?’ you ask as Mason pushes the door to the school open and the three of you file inside.

Liam looks glum. ‘Nah. She said they smelt like fear, which was exactly what we’d already worked out. If we still had one, we’d ask you for a third opinion.’

For a moment, you don’t realize what he’s talking about, then remember - you’re a werewolf now too. Chemo-signals were a thing you could sense. Even a few months into your transformation, you’re still getting used to all this.

‘Sniffing a dead rat wasn’t on my agenda for tonight, so I’ll pass for now,’ you saying, quietly relieved. 

As the three of you reach the corner, you stop in surprise. There are two people in the hallway, neither of whom you expected to see here. One you recognize, although you’re not sure why Deputy Parrish is at the school this late at night, and the other is a mystery. A tall man, dressed in an army jacket, glowering at Parrish. 

It’s only once you come to a stop that you notice this new man is growling, low in his throat. It’s a growl you’ve heard before, from Parrish himself. 

‘Something you let out,’ the man growls, in response a question Parrish must have asked before you arrived. ‘It must be stopped.’

Mason looks to both you and Liam, as confused as the rest of you. ‘Is he talking to you?’

‘I hope not,’ Liam confirms, and you shrug along with him. 

The man growls again, and this time his eyes glow a blazing orange, like the very fires of hell. Which is appropriate because, the next thing you know, he’s burst into flames and extended wicked looking claws, a look which is oddly familiar Parrish mirrors his movements, and in seconds the pair of them are burning, two miniature suns in the centre of Beacon Hills High School. 

Liam darts in front of Mason, pushing his friend out of the line of fire with a shout of, ‘get behind me!’ You stand alongside him, not sure what to do just yet. Distantly, you’re pleased that Liam didn’t try to keep you out of harm’s way. You may be unsure about your new werewolf abilities, but he’s got faith in you.

‘Wait, that’s a-’ Mason begins, and Liam nods before he even finishes.

‘Hellhound.’

As you watch, the two hellhounds charge at each other like comets on a collision course, right down to their tails of flame billowing out behind them. The three of you are paralyzed as they savagely rake into each other, claws and fire in equal measure.

You can’t get close, not while they’re fighting each other - you’ve learned from previous experience that Parrish’s hellfire is deadly and, even with your newfound healing abilities, you don’t really want to be burned by it. 

But as you watch, you can tell that you’re going to need to step in. The new hellhound is winning, and he throws Parrish through a pair of double doors and into an alleyway outside with a very final thump. As he does so, he turns back up the corridor towards you, Liam, and Mason, a hungry look in his eyes. He’s not done fighting yet.

‘Run!’ Liam shouts, pushing Mason backwards. 

‘Wait, I’m not leaving you!’ Mason protests, but Liam is firm. He glances back at you with a pleading look on his face, and you know right away that he wants you to take Mason to safety.

‘Be careful,’ you whisper, and grab Mason by the arm, dragging him away as Liam bounds into the fight himself. 

You shove Mason along back out into the parking lot and towards his car, but he stops, defiant.

‘We can’t just leave Liam in there alone! That’s a hellhound, he doesn’t stand a chance on his own!’ The desperation in his voice, in his eyes, is enough to give you pause. You know what Scott would do right now, and run away is definitely not it.

‘Alright, I’ll go help him. But you stay here.’

‘Not a chance.’ Mason pops the trunk of his car and retrieves a very familiar looking baseball bat, which he hefts up onto his shoulder.

‘We don’t have time to argue,’ you tell him. ‘Be careful, and keep away from that all that fire. I don’t know if I’d survive it, so you definitely won’t.’

Mason nods in understanding, and the pair of you turn back around as quickly as you arrived, dashing back towards the fight that you had literally just left.

And it’s a good thing too. When you arrive back in the corridor, the hellhound is holding Liam up against a locker, growling in his deep voice. You don’t hear what he says, blood pounding in your ears, and Mason rockets past you, swinging his bat with all his might.

The hellhound moves faster. He grasps the baseball bat in one hand, hellfire melting the metal around his fingers. You wince - Stiles will not be pleased - as the hellhound shoves backwards with the bat and knocks Mason across the hall, where he slams into another bank of lockers and drops to the floor.

It gives Liam the opening he needs however, and the little beta throws off the hellhound, launching a spinning kick you could never hope to emulate across his attacker’s jaw.

‘Liam!’ you yell, and he nods stiffly. You were right - he needs all the help he can get, and he knows it.

For the first time since you’ve become a werewolf, you’re being called on to use your powers to fight. You can do this. You’ve been practicing. This will work. You flick your hands out from your sides, and are pleased to see your claws in place at the ends of your fingers. Your mouth twists, fangs extending, and you roar as loud as you can. It’s not a noise you’re accustomed to making, not a noise you ever thought you were capable of, but right now nothing has ever felt so right.

You let the unfamiliar werewolf side of you take over, and rush towards the hellhound, joining in with Liam’s attack. He swipes across the hellhound’s chest, deep red furrows blossoming where his claws had struck. The hellhound slices him back, in the chest and the stomach, and Liam falls to one side with blood stains spreading across his white shirt. 

You fill the space instantly, getting in a few blows of your own. The hellhound’s claws rake through the air towards you, and you bring your hands up in front of your face to block the strikes before they land. His hellfire tipped claws sear into your forearm, and you bellow in pain.

Liam takes over, renewing his attacks until finally, the three of you collapse against the lockers - you and Liam on one side, and the hellhound on the other. Surprisingly, the hellhound laughs.

‘It won’t stay hidden. It must be stopped. Nothing else matters,’ he says cryptically. 

As Liam leans back, hand clutched to his side in pain, you pull yourself over to Mason and shake him awake. He pushes past you to Liam, and as the three of you begin to recover from the fight, you notice that the hellhound is, somehow, gone. 

All that’s left of his presence is a smeared bloodstain down the locker he was leaning in front of, a few discarded locker doors, and the melted remains of Stiles’ bat. 

Your forearm, understandably, feels like it’s on fire. You glance down at the slashes, already beginning to heal, and then over to Liam and Mason. Mason has pulled Liam to his feet, and inclines his head towards the locker rooms.

‘We need to get him fixed up,’ he says, one of Liam’s arms slung over his shoulder. You copy the movement and, between the two of you, you drag the courageous werewolf into the locker room, depositing him on one of the benches.

Mason tears Liam’s ruined shirt off, exposing his slender torso to the air. The slashes across his chest are identical to those on your forearm - you’ve both been very lucky, all things considered.

‘I’m going to call Scott,’ you tell them, as Mason begins to comfort his friend. You’re still the adult here - for as long as you can, you want to spare them as much of the grown-up responsibility stuff as possible.

You slide your cell phone out of your pocket and punch in Scott’s quick-dial number. On the second ring, he answers.

‘Oh, hey, I was just about to call you. We can’t leave yet, something’s happened,’ he says with great urgency.

You give the phone receiver a knowing smile, even though Scott can’t see it. ‘Trust me, I know. You need to get to the high school. We had a visitor. A hellhound visitor.’

‘Parrish?’

‘He was here too - but it was a different hellhound. A new one. He ran into the woods behind the school - but he’s wounded, so we should be able to find him. Mason’s patching Liam up, I can meet you in the parking lot and we can go after him together.’

‘Got it. We’ll be there soon.’

Without even a goodbye, Scott rings off. You wince once again as you straighten your arm, the hellhound’s claw wounds crinkling on your skin. They sting like a son of a bitch.

You turn back to Mason just in time to hear him give Liam some sage advice. ‘Wounds heal. People move. Things change.’

‘Yeah,’ Liam agrees. ‘But it still hurts though.’

Maybe Mason is onto something, you think. He may have been talking about Liam’s relationship with Hayden, but it fits you and Theo just as well.

People move on. Things do change. So maybe it’s time for you to move on from Theo. After three months with no contact, how can you still sit around waiting for him? What could be so important that he can’t even drop you a text to let you know that he’s okay? Should you text him, and let him know about the hellhound, that something’s going on? But he wanted to be left alone until he’d finished whatever he’s doing. How dangerous do things need to get before you call him?

All these questions swirl around in your head, a familiar tornado of thoughts that you can’t get away from. You leave Liam and Mason alone and walk out into the parking lot, hoping that the fresh air would help the wound on your forearm heal.

You gaze out into the night, wondering where the hellhound had gone. You sniff the air, and catch the peculiar aroma of his scent, like firewood and blood. 

The power of your supernatural senses reminds you, once again, of Theo. You could hunt him down, if you had to. You had some things with his scent, you could do it if you wanted. Maybe you should. Maybe he’s in trouble. Maybe he needs you right now.

Maybe, maybe, maybe. All you have is maybes.

Another familiar sound echoes out into the darkness as Roscoe rounds a corner and screeches to a halt in front of you. Out fall Scott, Lydia, and Malia - you dash towards them, pointing towards the woods in the direction of the hellhound’s scent, but as soon as you do you hear a roar, rendering your pointing irrelevant.

So much for impressing them with your new sense of smell, you think, but there’ll be time for that later. Falling into step beside the others, you run out into the Beacon Hills woods, four abreast. 

It’s comforting, the feel of the earth beneath your feet as you run. You can feel your worries about Theo drifting away as you outstrip them, the burn in your legs helping to counterbalance the burning in your arm. 

You’re not sure how long you run. It can’t be too long, as Lydia is still next to you, and she doesn’t have the same supernatural stamina as you, Malia, and Scott. No matter how far you run, your problems will still be there when you get back, but a momentary respite is better than nothing at all.

Eventually, you stop. The scent has become even stronger - for good reason. On the forest floor is the hellhound you and Liam had just fought to a standstill, with a new bullet hole right between his eyes. Somehow, someway, he’s been killed.

‘I thought you couldn’t kill a hellhound,’ Lydia says, her voice as disbelieving as yours would be, if you could find the words.

Scott reaches down next to the body, collecting a silvery object from the leaves. He holds it up to the three of you - it’s a bullet casing, stamped with a very distinctive, and very familiar fleur-de-lis design. 

‘Argent.’

‘Then it’s true,’ Lydia says, and you quirk an eyebrow in confusion.

‘Then what’s true? What else did you hear?’ Malia asks.

‘The sound of people who have never lifted a hand against another human being,’ Lydia replies ominously. You shift from foot to foot, not sure how to take that news. When Scott said that something had happened, he must have meant that Lydia saw something, got some supernatural banshee message that meant you weren’t going anywhere. Malia gives you an ‘I’ll explain later’ look, and your eyebrow drops back down, slowly. 

‘Something was killing them?’ Scott asks.

Lydia shakes her head, almost as if she wishes they were because the alternative is even worse. ‘They were killing each other,’ she says instead. Yep, definitely worse.

You take a deep breath, stepping to one side of your friends to collect your thoughts. Something is very wrong in Beacon Hills. Something bad enough to bring another hellhound running - and then to get that hellhound, a supernatural being that’s meant to be almost indestructible, killed. 

Scott was right - whether was going on, none of you could leave just yet. From the sound of what the hellhound had said before, something had escaped. Something that you had let out. So this was your responsibility, and you couldn’t go off to college, even just on the other side of the town, in good conscience.

On the plus side, you think, this might distract you from thinking about Theo for a while. Or, it could make you worry about him even more - if something like this could get a hellhound killed, how safe were werewolves, or chimeras? Your maybes flit back through your mind - maybe you should go find him. Maybe he’s hurt. Maybe he needs you. Maybe, maybe, maybe.

Maybe this could be the end. The adventure that finally puts an end to all of your lives. Or maybe, this could be the catalyst that leads you back to Theo after all this time. Somehow you could feel that, whatever was about to happen, it was going to be the greatest challenge you and your friends had ever faced.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And here we go! The final 10 episodes of the show, the final 10 (?) chapters of the fic. 
> 
> Will we get a happy ending, or is this all going to end in tragedy?


	9. The Ghost Of You

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Set during the events of Teen Wolf 06x12 - Raw Talent

Beacon Hills woods looks different at night, you think. There are some places that you like better than others, like the lake Theo had taken you to once, but there was something about the place that just made it seem magical. Like it was full of possibilities, full of untamed potential. Which, with the Nemeton somewhere around here, was actually true.

This was a new perspective you’d gained since becoming a werewolf. You weren’t anywhere near as scared to be out here anymore, not now that you could protect yourself - in theory - should something happen to you. That, and being with your friends made this all a lot easier too.

Scott, Malia, and Lydia were fanned out ahead of you. You’d recovered the bullet casing from the dead hellhound, and were heading back towards the main road so that you could return to the high school and, from there, get back home.

Scott has stopped, though. As you look, he cocks his head to one side, listening intently.

‘Do you hear that?’ he asks, and both you and Malia copy him, listening. A dull rhythmic thudding can be heard, echoing off of the trees. No, not echoing - there was more than one set of sounds. You’re not alone out here.

‘Heartbeats?’ Malia asks, having come to the same conclusion.

‘A lot of them,’ Scott confirms gravely. ‘They’re here.’

‘Who?’

‘Hunters. Run!’ Scott shouts explosively, and your legs are moving before you even know why. Fight or flight instincts have cut in, and you know from all of your past dealings with hunters that they come equipped with one very deadly weapon - guns.

You’ve been clawed before, by lots of different creatures. Kanima, werewolf, the Beast, and after today you can add hellhound to the list, but something about being shot sends waves of fear through you. You wonder if it’s the werewolf in you now, telling you that being shot is almost always the end of the line.

Regardless, you’re off and running. It takes you a minute or so to realise that you’ve run in a different direction to the rest of your friends, so you’re now you really are out here all alone. The heartbeats you heard have faded - they must have followed everyone else. You slow, and stop, barely out of breath. This whole supernatural stamina thing was great - maybe you should have asked Scott to bite you before, joined the lacrosse team or something. But no, that’s selfish, and you push the thought aside as just a silly fantasy. You wanted these abilities to protect your friends, not to get better at sports.

You begin to walk back towards the road - once you get there, you reason, you’ll text Scott and see where to meet everyone. You blink, activating your werewolf sight so that you don’t trip over any twigs or rocks or something.

And there, between two trees, is a very familiar figure. He’s tall, and broad, and wearing the smirk you see in your dreams every night. One arm is pulled across his body, holding onto the other tightly, a red stain blooming under his fingers.

It’s Theo, and he’s hurt.

You gasp involuntarily. You can’t believe he’s here. What is he doing here, why has he chosen to reveal himself now? How did he get hurt? Can you help him?

‘Theo! Theo, oh my god,’ is all you can think to say. You reach out your arms, ready to embrace him after all this time and never let him go again but, as you take a step towards him, he smirks even wider before turning and disappearing into the woods.

‘Theo! Come back! Let me help you!’

You set off after him, running again, terrified for no reason. Why is he running away from you? What if he’s gone for good this time? The fear pounds in your ears, your breath catching in your throat as you run, as if you’re no longer a werewolf but back to being just a scared human.

You glimpse him as you run, always ahead of you, just out of reach, behind a tree, behind a bush, the effort of running seemingly not affecting him at all. You call his name, again and again, begging him to stop, to let you help him, that whatever he’s running from, you can face it together, but nothing seems to work.

Eventually, you emerge from the trees onto a hill, one that leads up to a very steep drop. You’ve been here before.. It’s one of your favourite places in the woods - the moon hangs over the entirety of Beacon Hills from here, the whole town spread out at the bottom of the cliff. You didn’t realise you’d been running so hard and so fast - you were at the high school before, and now you’re out on the outskirts.

Standing atop the hill is Theo - now trapped, with nowhere to go but down. He turns to face you, his smirk replaced by a sad smile.

‘Theo, what the hell. Why are we all the wait out here? Your arm, do you need help? Let me see it.’

You step onto the first slightly inclined piece of earth, and Theo doesn’t move. He doesn’t run to the side, or try to stop you. You take that as a sign, and climb the rest of the way as quickly as you can without losing your footing. In seconds, you’re standing next to him. You reach out a hand and take his arm. He doesn’t pull away, but he doesn’t speak either. Tenderly, you remove his hand from his wound, but it’s already healed. It looked worse than it did - dried blood on the edge of his hoodie, but no sign of any kind of attack.

‘Did you run into the hunters? What happened to you? Where have you been?’ You know you’re asking too many questions at once, that he can’t possibly answer them all in one go, but you can’t stop yourself.

It’s only when you realise that you’re still holding his hand that something dawns on you. He’s cold to the touch. Ice cold. Theo has always run hot before, thanks to his chimera physiology. And why has he still not said a word?

‘Theo?’ you ask tentatively, his hand dropping from yours like a dead weight back to his side. He smiles sadly again, and then steps backwards off the cliff.

You scream his name, eyes bulging as you grab for him, but he’s already gone over the edge. You scramble and watch, but the bottom of the cliff looks like a dark hole, an impossible abyss that shouldn’t be there, that should definitely not exist. Theo, if that really was him, is swallowed up within it and vanishes from view.

You’re not sure whether to scream again, or laugh, or cry. Fear continues to grip you, your pulse continuing to race and your breaths coming in ragged gasps. What had happened? What was going on?

And, scariest of all, the thought in the forefront of your mind - should you jump down there after him?

This is how your friends find you, flat on your stomach, leaning out over the cliff edge, staring down at the swirling blackness below. Scott calls your name, but you don’t hear him until he’s right next to you, one hand reassuringly on your back as he pulls you to your feet and away from the edge.

‘Hey. Hey, it’s okay. We’re here,’ he says, and you finally wrench your eyes away from the cliff to see Lydia and Malia also standing close by, concerned looks on their faces. They’re shaken too, but whether by their own adventure or how they’ve found you, you’re not sure.

‘Hey,’ Scott says again, and you look up at him, totally lost.

‘What? Scott? What’s going on? What happened?’

‘We’re not sure. It wasn’t hunters at all, it was the Sheriff and Parrish and the other deputies.’

‘Scott nearly mauled Stilinski to death,’ Malia adds helpfully, and Lydia elbows her, not very discretely.

‘Did any of you see…’ you begin to ask, then reconsider. Instead, you look back over the edge of the cliff one final time. The swirling blackness is gone, replaced with the usual craggy bottom of the cliff, pointed rocks and scrappy plants growing into the sides of it. No sign of Theo. No dead body, no smirk peering back up at you. It was as if he had never been there at all.

Maybe he hadn’t.

‘See what?’ Malia asks, but you shake your head, finally bringing yourself back to reality.

‘Nothing, it’s silly. I thought I saw something down there, that’s why I was laying there, looking. But I was wrong, it was nothing. Nothing at all.’

Scott gives you a look, a look that says he knows there’s more to this story than meets the eye, but he’s not going to push you right now. Instead, he leads you to the bottom of the hill, and the four of you trudge slowly back through Beacon Hills woods towards your cars in companionable silence.

What was all that? you wonder. Did you really see Theo at all? Did Scott actually see hunters? Or was there something else going on that you weren’t aware of yet? And that fear, like a cloying hand wrapped around your chest, constricting your breath and your thought processes all at once - where had that come from? And was it all connected to the dead hellhound?

Tonight had given you lots of questions, no answers, and a tantalizing glimpse at the one you love. Given how confused you now feel, you’re not sure which one of these you’re least grateful for.

*********

You lay flat on your bed, staring up at the ceiling. Outside your room, you can hear one of your parents stomping around in a huff. Neither of them were best pleased when you said you couldn’t go to Beacon Hills University yet, especially when you couldn’t provide them with a good reason, so now they’re raging around passive-aggressively while you lay here, contemplating the whorls and swirls in the ceiling plaster.

You’d offered to go with Lydia to see Parrish and try to decipher the rest of her visions, which she’d tried to explain to you as best she could, but she had declined. If this was pointing where she thought it was, she’d have to go alone. Instead, you’d reconvened with Scott and Malia and helped them track through Argent’s belongings to try and locate him so that you could ask about the bullet casing Scott had found.

You hadn’t been up to actually chasing him down however; the events of the night before were weighing heavily on your mind, so you’d retreated back home. Now you were regretting that decision, as you were left alone with your thoughts - a dangerous place to be.

From what you understood, your battle with the Wild Hunt a few months ago had caused something to escape. Something old, something unnamed, something powerful enough to frighten a hellhound. And it also looked like Argent was back in business, selling guns again. What did that mean for the hunter population of Beacon Hills?

But all of these thoughts were secondary - there was one overshadowing all the others. Your cell phone is grasped in one hand, open to Theo’s contact details. Your thumb hovers over the call button, flicks to the text button, and then away again. You’re not even looking at it, but you know what you’re doing.

Call, text, cancel. Call, text, cancel.

After the fear-induced mirage last night, whatever that was, you needed Theo now more than ever. To hold you tight to him and let you know that it’s all going to be okay. That he’s fine, that you’re fine, that everything’s going to be fine. The power in his arms closing over you like a shield, deflecting all of this supernatural madness away from the pair of you.

You know he’s out there. You know, somehow, that he’s still in town. The connection that you share lies dormant in your chest, but you know. There’s nothing that could happen to him that you wouldn’t know about - and that was one of your powers before you became an actual supernatural being. A love so strong that it connected you across whatever distance was between you.

Call, text, cancel. Call, text, cancel.

That’s when you feel it. A pain, not physical but emotional, like bullets tearing through your body, a hailstorm of pain from all directions. You stifle a cry and roll over, curling in on yourself as if making yourself smaller would make it hurt less.

You gasp, breathing heavily, until the pain subsides, white hot flames under your skin dulling to a gentle burn, and then, finally, agonizingly, gone.

You slowly uncurl yourself, and reach out for your phone. That was no ordinary anxiety attack, or a reaction to your traumas. That felt real - vividly painful, as if you were the one being hurt. But that wasn’t it. Not at all.

Theo was in trouble, and he needed your help, right now.

Ignoring the small voice in the back of your mind telling you that you should leave him alone, that he wanted to be left alone, that whatever is going on, he can handle it, you thumb back to Theo’s contact details and the familiar options.

Call, text, cancel.

You press the call button, and your phone begins to ring. You hold it up to your ear, wringing your hands in worry, waiting for the voice at the other end of the phone, that deep, gravelly voice that could roar a battle cry or whisper how much he loved you in your ear. It rings for what seems like forever, before his voicemail message cuts in.

‘Hey, this is Theo. I’m off the grid right now, so leave your message and I’ll get back to you when I can.’

Off the grid was right. You glare at the phone, as if it is it’s fault that Theo didn’t pick up. Dimly, you realise that it's the first time in months that you've heard his voice, and that makes you sad all over again. Finally the phone bleeps, and you ramble off a quick message.

‘Theo, it’s me. I know you said not to call you, that you’d be back as soon as you could, but I know something’s happened. Don’t ask me how, I just know. If you’re hurt, if you’re in trouble, please, just call me and let me help. Or let me know that you’re okay. I know something’s wrong, and I can’t bear knowing that and not being able to do something about it. Call me back. Please. I love you.’

You disconnect the call and look at your cell phone like it’s a foreign object, some weird square alien thing in your hand that you don’t know what to do with. What are you supposed to do now?

You thumb the screen back open and flick through your contacts again, stopping on Scott’s name this time. Theo’s name sits at the bottom of the screen, taunting you, begging you to call him again, but you know it won’t help. Instead, you hit the button and call your alpha.

He picks up after a few seconds, but he sounds distracted, like something’s going on that you can’t quite hear. You know he and Malia were trying to find Argent - maybe he’d been in trouble as well, and they’d had to rescue him, too.

‘Hey, what’s up?’

‘That can wait, are you okay? Did you find Argent?’

‘Yeah,’ Scott admits, ‘we’ll fill you in later. We’re heading back out into the woods with him now, see if we can find some more information about who killed the hellhound. Did you need something, or did you want to come meet us?’

‘That’s okay, I think I’ve got something else I need to do,’ you tell him. ‘Hey, Scott, listen, I know this is the wrong time to bring this up, there’s already so much going on, but I have this...bad feeling.’

You can hear Scott smiling as he speaks again. ‘You’re beginning to sound like Lydia, you know? Bad feeling about what?’

‘I think...I think something bad’s happened. To...to Theo.’

Scott, to his eternal credit, doesn’t even miss a beat. He could easily react with anger - there’s really no time to be worrying about Theo when there are so many other crises to be dealing with right now, but no, he’s Scott McCall, and he has time for everyone’s problems even when he’s collapsing under the weight of his own.

‘What makes you say that? Is this about what you saw last night?’

Perceptive as ever, too. ‘Something like that. I saw him last night. Theo, I mean. In the woods. He ran away from me, up onto that cliff. And then he jumped off, but he didn’t hit the bottom. He fell into this big pool of...darkness, and then vanished. And when I looked back, it was all gone.’

‘Did he say anything to you?’

‘No, that was the weird thing. He didn’t say a word. He was hurt, but it had healed, and then he just walked off the cliff. And then today, just now, I felt this...excruciating pain. Like I was being shot at from all directions. I know something bad’s happened, Scott. Something really bad.’

Scott takes a moment to think. You can hear Malia and Argent talking in the background, but you can’t make out what they’re saying. When Scott replies, he’s being as delicate as he can. ‘I think that whatever happened last night, it’s still affecting you. That’s nothing to be ashamed of - it did weird things to me too. I nearly killed Stilinski. And I think maybe because you’re feeling vulnerable without him, it latched onto your feelings for Theo and made you see something, feel something, that wasn’t there.’

‘So you don’t believe me?’ you say, your voice falling as much as you don’t want it to. Did you really expect him to, when you think about it? Weird psychic feelings were Lydia’s deal, not yours. He was probably right. But that didn’t make it hurt any less.

‘I believe that you believe it,’ Scott says firmly. ‘And if you really want to, we can go out looking for Theo tomorrow, as soon as we get a chance. But for now, I think you should get some rest, and see how you feel in the morning. If you still think Theo’s in danger, then I swear, we’ll go look for him together. I promise.’

‘Okay. Thanks Scott. Good luck - I hope you find something.’

‘Thanks.’

Scott rings off, and you’re left alone with your thoughts again. Was he right? Was it all just in your head? Lingering effects from the weird hallucinations in the woods last night, coupled with your feelings of hopelessness about Theo?

No, you realise. It’s more than that. You know it, deep down - something is wrong. Theo is in trouble, and he needs you. And you’re not going to wait until morning to try and help him.


	10. Exercise In Futility

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Set during the events of Teen Wolf 06x13 - After Images

You pull up to Doctor Deaton’s veterinary surgery and hop off of your bike. It’s still late - there’s no chance Deaton will be here at this time of night. But that’s fine. You’d rather have the place to yourself so you can investigate in peace.

You take the spare key from your pocket and pop the door of the surgery open. If Theo was hurt, and he could get away, this would be the first place he’d head. It had medical supplies if he was injured, and it had a phone in case he’d lost his. He could call for help - call Scott, call you, call somebody.

It’s an odd place to start, but you don’t really have any other leads right now. You’d tried to find some of Theo’s old clothes that you could use to track his scent, but those you could find had spent so long in your possession that all of Theo’s distinctive smell had faded away. You were at a loss, grasping at straws - but you didn’t have any other options. You could wait till tomorrow, and see if Scott had any ideas, but you know that you’d feel better if you did something tonight, even if it was just something futile like this.

You step through the connecting door from the reception area into the operating theatre. There’s no sign of anything here at all. Deaton’s surgery is impeccably clean and organized - all you can smell are cleaning fluids and sterilization steam.

And...wait. Something else. Something familiar. Blood.

You’d never have been able to smell it before, but your new werewolf senses help you pick out the scent - a coppery tang in the air, very faint, but definitely there.

You flick on the large operating light, illuminating the room, and begin to search for the source of the smell, head swiveling backwards and forwards as you try to work out which way it’s coming from.

Your nose burns from the effort, bleach scalding your senses, but it works. You crouch down under the table and collect a small scalpel from the floor. Lining the top of the blade is, as you expected, blood. Theo’s blood.

But it’s not the blood itself that convinces you that he was here - it’s the lingering chemo-signals around the scalpel. He had definitely been here, and he had been afraid.

You were right - Theo had been hurt, and this was where he had come seeking refuge. And he must have left in a hurry if he had dropped the scalpel without putting it away. He’d kept such a low profile before now, you know something must have changed if he made a mistake like this.

You turn the scalpel over in your hands, the dried blood glinting in the light, feeling validated. Maybe you were better at this whole werewolf thing than you’d given yourself credit for.

A feeling which soon gave way to worry. Yes, you’d been right, but the implications of that were huge. He could still be out there now, in danger. And you were standing here gloating that you’d managed to find one tiny trace of him. Idiot!

You scan the room for any further clues as to Theo’s whereabouts, or the reason he had come to Deaton’s in the first place, but you find nothing. You click off the light, stuff the scalpel in your pocket, and leave the way you came, locking the door behind you.

You stand out in the parking lot again and raise your nose to the air, sniffing even harder than you had before. There were far more scents out here, constantly changing and shifting even as you smelled them. But now you had a specific scent to zero in on, and it was there - faint, and getting fainter every second, but there - and that would be enough.

You set off in the direction of the scent, walking purposefully until you broke into a jog, then a run. You had solid proof and a trail to follow - nothing would stop you from finding him now.

The tang of Theo’s scent grows stronger in your nose as you run, until you can almost taste him in your mouth, like he was there in front of you, kissing you, as hard as he could. The ghost of his tongue on your lips is almost unbearable, the world taunting you with his presence and yet not letting you experience it for real.

The streets of Beacon Hills fall away beneath you. You’re running faster than you’ve ever ran before, but still you pump your legs harder, desperate for some physical sign of Theo to ease your worried mind.

Eventually, you round a corner. Theo’s scent is almost like a searing presence on your senses now, but he’s nowhere to be seen. The street is deserted, all abandoned warehouses and uninhabited old apartment buildings set to be condemned. You stop, eyes closed, breathing deep, trying to centre yourself. 

The scent of Theo’s fear is almost palpable now, a sickly yellow tinge in the air. You turn on the spot, ever so slowly. Whereas before you had been trying to find any sign of Theo’s scent at all in a world full of other, more overpowering smells, now you were surrounded by Theo’s scent and trying to pinpoint the end of the trail. From a needle in a haystack, to a needle in a pile of needles.

Your eyes snap open, and you’re facing a large overgrown bush on the side of the road. There’s no doubt about it, even to your newly enhanced senses - Theo was here. You shove through the hedge, sharp thorns and tangles tearing at your clothes, your skin, your hair, but you don’t care; he’s almost within your grasp.

You collide with something and bounce off, pain blossoming in your forehead from the impact. At least you don’t have to worry about it bruising anymore, thank you supernatural healing factor, you think absently as you pull yourself to your feet and collect yourself. But once you realise what it was that you ran into, you almost wish you had never tried to find Theo at all.

In front of you, obscured by the bush from the side of the road, is Theo’s 4x4. But it’s not pristine and shiny any more. No, instead it’s riddled with bullet holes, all of the windows and the windscreen shattered beyond repair. Three of the four tires have been punctured, and the paintwork has been torn to shreds by both bullets and the thorns of the hedge. And, on top of all that, it’s been torched. Soaked in gasoline and set ablaze.

However, that’s not the worst part. The sight of the vehicle destroyed like this is devastating, yes. But when you finally manage to pluck up the courage to creep closer, your emotions finally get the better of you.

Inside the 4x4 are clothes, blankets, old food wrappers, all coated in fragments of glass and ash. The back seats have been pushed down so that someone could lay flat on them, and use them as a makeshift bed. It’s clear from one look what’s been going on here.

Theo’s been living in his car, and that breaks your already fragile heart. Why, when he knew he had someone to look after him, to give him somewhere to stay, had he spent the last three months living alone in his car?

Tears run freely as you look at the wreckage of his life, all discarded and left to rot. The trail of fear ends here. Even though his scent has been burned away by the fire, you can tell without a doubt that whoever did this to Theo utterly terrified him. You were wrong before - there was something that would stop you from finding him. This is a dead end.

Dead end.

Dead.

No, you can’t think like that. He’s still alive. He has to be. Or there’d be more blood, or a...a body.

A vibrating in your pants pocket snaps you back to reality. You drag a hand across your eyes to wipe away the tears, and pull your phone out. It’s Scott.

‘Hey, it’s me. We’re going to need your help.’

‘What’s going on?’ you say, coughing slightly to clear away the last remnants of tears. Something’s clearly wrong, and you don’t need Scott distracted worrying about your latest Theo drama.

‘Brett’s missing. We think he’s being hunted. Can you meet us? We’re going to try and find him before something bad happens.’

‘Yeah, sure. Text me the details and I’ll be there soon.’ 

‘Gotcha. Thanks.’

Scott rings off, and you walk back to the road, away from the devastation that is Theo’s car. Soon after, a text message pings through with some coordinates for you to meet up with the rest of the pack. You take one absent look back at the bush, now obscuring the vehicle from view once again, and then set off towards your friends.

Something bad has already happened to Theo, you think. If you’re lucky, like Scott said, maybe you can stop something bad happening to Brett too. As much as you want to stay here and see what you can find, Brett is in immediate danger, and there’s definitely something you can do about that.

Maybe you can save at least one person tonight.

*********

'Liam, you don't know who they are or what they're capable of,’ Scott groans through gritted teeth, one hand clamped on his stomach wound and the other flat on the floor of the tunnel in order to stop himself from sliding downwards.

Liam glares down at him, defiant but confident in what he’s saying. ‘Look, I know who we are. We never give up, especially when it's someone innocent, when it's someone alone, when it's one of our friends.’

He’s right, you think. Even though Scott has somehow managed to find himself impaled on a vicious trap set by whatever hunter is doing all of this, you can’t give up. Lori is pacing restlessly, eager to follow her brother’s trail. And, once again, you’ve found yourself down in these awful tunnels. But if Brett is down here, then this is where you need to be.

Scott seems to think it over, and then come to a grudging decision. He looks up at you all and groans once again as pain shoots through his body. Thankfully you can’t smell poison - Scott will heal, but he’s out of action for now. 

‘Okay, go, go,’ he decides, and looks to both you and Malia as Liam heads off towards Lori. ‘All of you, I'll catch up.’ 

Malia seems reluctant to leave him however and, if you’re honest, so are you. Part of you wants to run again, force yourself through all of these tunnels for the thousandth time to try and find Brett before something happens to him like something happened to Theo, but then a bigger part of you wants to stay and help Scott. You can’t just leave your alpha, your best friend, down here alone and defenseless. 

‘Go, Malia, go with them,’ he insists, and then tries to force himself back to his feet, only to slide straight back down again. The pain is just too much, and your heart aches for him. ‘ I just need a minute, go.’

‘You just need to shut up,’ Malia tells him firmly. She’s not going anywhere, you know, but she looks up at you and nods in the direction Liam and Lori took off in. ‘Go after them. Make sure Liam doesn’t do something stupid.’

‘You sound like Scott,’ you say with a smile, and then you do as she says. If Malia’s staying with Scott, it makes sense for you to go after Liam. Lori might trigger another trap in her haste to find Brett, and you couldn’t leave the two younger werewolves down here alone. Even if you’re new to being a werewolf, you’ve still been in the pack longer than Liam, longer than Malia even - you know how to handle situations like this. In theory, at least.

Leaving Scott and Malia behind, you head off into the tunnels once again. Liam and Lori can’t have gotten far.

*********

How the hell had Liam and Lori gotten so far ahead? You were only a minute or two behind them, tops, and yet you’ve been jogging as carefully as you can through the tunnels while keeping an eye out for more traps and you haven’t seen a single sign of either of them. Their scents are strong, so you’re able to follow them despite the usual smells of stale water and cleaning fluid pervading the tunnels, but you still haven’t come across them yet.

You haven’t smelt blood, or heard any cries of pain, though, so you know at the very least that they’re still in one piece. Hopefully, so is Brett.

And, also hopefully, somewhere, so is Theo.

You’d been doing a pretty good job of keeping Theo, and the sight of his decimated car, out of your thoughts so far. You’d been focused on finding Brett, on helping your friends, so the hopelessness of that situation hadn’t been playing on your mind until now. You shake your head, trying to clear the thoughts away as if they were errant butterflies fascinated by your face.

And then you turn another, somehow familiar, corner and you know that Theo is the only thing you’re going to be thinking about for a while. 

You’ve managed, somehow, to find yourself in both the best and the worst hallway these tunnels have. The hallway that took Theo away from you once before. And the hallway that, with Liam’s help, returned him to you once again. You stop, unable to help yourself, and walk over to the crack in the ground.

It’s an inconspicuous crack, almost indistinguishable from any other that you’ve seen on the floors and walls of the tunnels in the time you’ve spent down here. But to you, it holds a very special meaning. The magic of Kira’s katana had created it and, when Theo literally punched his way through the floor to return from Hell, it had sealed back over as if he had never been down there at all, leaving the tiniest little zig zag pattern to mark his ‘grave’.

But it’s there. That symbol of death and rebirth, of losing the one you love and having him return to you all over again. It’s so strange, how something as silly as a crack in the floor can make you feel such complicated emotions. You kneel down, tracing the tips of your fingers across its jagged edges.

The worry, the fear that Theo might be...dead, returns. 

There’s no way someone survived what had happened to Theo’s car. But there was no body. But why would someone shoot up his car if they weren’t trying to kill him? But there was no blood. But there was no sign of a struggle, or of Theo trying to escape. But he couldn’t be dead, he just couldn’t... 

Round and around and around your thoughts whirl, twisting and turning and zigzagging like a crack in your mind to mirror the one under your hands, threatening to split your mind in two as the tunnel floor had been. 

Theo was alive. Theo had to be dead. Theo was definitely alive. There’s no way Theo survived. 

For the second time that night, your connection to Theo stirs in your chest. The chain around your heart, connected across space and time to Theo’s own, jangles slightly, pulls you forward, just a tiny bit. 

No. No more doubts. No more worries. Nothing like that. You can feel it. He’s still alive. You need to keep moving. Theo is, for now, okay. You were sure of it. Or you were trying to convince yourself you were sure of it, at least. And, like you told yourself before, you need to focus on saving the person you can definitely save right now. 

That’s what Theo would want you to do. Your defiance in the face of danger, your urge to protect those you care about - he loved that about you. He’d want you to use that right now, and save the life of an innocent werewolf if you could.

You trace the crack once more, and then clench your fist in determination and push yourself off of the floor. And that’s when you hear the distinctive whistle of a crossbow bolt slicing through the air. 

You’ve heard that sound before - Allison fired crossbows, as well as her compound bow. Other hunters had fired crossbows around you. It was a very familiar noise. But this was the first time you’d heard it that whistling coming towards you instead of away.

Just in time, you twist your body to one side and dive to the floor. The bolt whizzes past and thunks into the opposite wall, clattering harmlessly to the ground.

That bolt had been aimed right where your heart would have been had you not moved. Whoever prepared this trap had prepared it just for you. Someone who knew you would come back here, and how you would react. Exactly where you would stand. And, most importantly, they knew you were a werewolf now - because who would set a trap for a human?

As you stare at the crossbow bolt, now laying harmlessly on the floor of the tunnel, sharp edge blunted by its collision with the wall, this is the first time that the reality of your new situation really hits you. 

You’re a werewolf. You have been for a while now. In that time, you’ve used your powers to protect yourself, your friends. You’ve run through Beacon Hills woods, wind in your face. You’ve sliced with your claws, and used your werewolf senses to track the one you love, and scan the ground for traps. All of the benefits of your new status as a member of the supernatural have been wonderful, exactly what you wanted when you asked Scott to bite you.

But being a werewolf also means something else - something that’s becoming more and more apparent as you learn about this new hunter. It means you’re a target. You’re part of a world that is dangerous, and deadly, and oftentimes fatal. You’ve lost friends to it before. And now you’re in someone’s crosshairs. Someone wants to kill you, for who you are. For who you chose to become. For who you always knew you were supposed to be.

And that’s terrifying.

That’s also when Liam appears, Lori close behind him. 

‘What are you doing here? I thought you were with Scott?’ he asks, and you finally tear your eyes away from the crossbow bolt, up to his expectant face. ‘Why are you on the floor?’

‘It’s a long story,’ you say. You make a snap decision and collect the crossbow bolt, sliding it into one of your pockets before using the wall to support yourself as you get back to your feet. ‘Scott sent me to find you - Malia’s going to stay with him and make sure he’s okay.’

‘Well, come on then,’ Liam says impatiently. ‘We think Brett’s close.’

‘Okay. Okay, let’s go,’ you reply, steeling yourself and walking towards him, out of the hallway that had taken your love away from you once, and had almost taken you away from him. You resolve not to look behind you as you do so, and follow Liam back to an intersection where you rejoin Lori and continue your search for her brother.

If you had looked behind you however, you would have seen a glimpse of a very familiar face - the face of Gerard Argent, twisted in hatred. Next to him is Miss Monroe, the new guidance counselor at Beacon Hills High School.

‘They’re the worst kind of werewolf,’ he says in his strained voice.

‘What do you mean?’

‘They asked for this. They wanted the power, the strength, the ability to be better than the rest of us. They asked to be changed into one of these abominations.’

‘Then they’ll die along with the rest of them,’ she confirms, and Gerard smiles darkly in response.

But of course, you don’t see or hear any of that.

*********

The pressure of the crossbow bolt on your leg is constant, even through your pants, as you walk cautiously through yet more of the tunnel corridors. You’re not even paying attention to Lori and Liam, who are a few feet ahead of you, eyes alert and ears open for any sign of Brett.

You know you’re meant to be helping find him. But someone just tried to kill you. You, specifically. With a trap designed exactly for you. That’s not something you can get over in a hot minute.

‘Hey!’ Liam whisper-shouts, and you snap out of your dark thoughts just in time to see him glaring impatiently at you for the second time in half an hour. ‘Are you listening?’

‘What?’ you ask stupidly, and he grits his teeth, cheekbones flaring as he does so.

‘What’s wrong with you? You’re meant to be looking after us, or whatever Scott sent you here to do, and you’re not even here. Not really.’

‘I’m sorry,’ you say as sincerely as you can. Even to your own ears, the apology sounds feeble. You try again, much firmer this time. ‘I’m sorry, Liam. You’re right. I am here. It’s just been a tough night, but that’s no excuse. I’m with you.’

Tough night is an understatement, you think to yourself.

‘Good. Come on, we’ve gotta go. Brett’s scent is getting stronger.’

You jog closer, falling in step beside him and Lori. He’s right, now that you actually pay attention - the scent of decay is definitely more powerful in this direction. Brett might not have that much time left. 

But there’s another scent here too, next to Brett’s impending doom and Lori’s fear and concern. Liam’s angry. Well, he’s almost always angry. But he’s also...unsure? Uncertain? You’re not a hundred percent on these chemo-signals just yet, the more nuanced ones take a little more puzzling out. You decide to take the more direct approach.

‘Hey, Liam. Are you okay?’

‘Yeah,’ he says dismissively. ‘Why?’

‘You don’t smell okay.’

‘Don’t smell me, you weirdo. Besides, we need to focus. Brett’s gotta be here somewhere.’

‘Don’t smell so weird then,’ you retort, and he gives you a disbelieving look, like he can’t work out what possessed you to say something like that. He looks as if he’s about to throw some kind of scathing remark at you, but instead he seems to deflate.

‘No, I’m not okay,’ he admits. ‘I’m scared, okay? Really scared.’

‘We’re all scared, Liam.’

‘Yeah, but it’s different for you guys. You’re all leaving. You’re walking away from all of this. I’ve gotta learn how to cope with all this stuff on my own, and I don’t think I’m going to be able to do it. Not like Scott does. I’m not Scott. I’ll never be Scott,’ he finishes sadly, and he looks so downcast it takes all of your effort not to take him in your arms and hug him as tightly as you can. Somehow, he probably won’t appreciate that right now, you reason. 

‘You don’t have to be Scott. You just have to be Liam. And Liam does pretty well, at least if you ask me,’ you reassure him as kindly as you can without sounding patronizing. ‘Everyone tackles things differently. Your way may not be the way Scott would do it - but that doesn’t mean it’s not right. And you’re not alone. I know Hayden’s gone, but Mason’s still here, and Corey.’

Liam rolls his eyes. ‘Mason’s going through...stuff,’ he says, but doesn’t elaborate. ‘Corey and I don’t really talk that much either. I know Mason trusts him, and I do too, I guess, but it’s not the same. I’m not used to having to make all the decisions. I don’t wanna screw this up and get someone hurt. Or worse.’

‘You won’t. And if you do, you’ll deal with it. This life is dangerous,’ you tell him, one hand absently tracing the crossbow bolt in your pocket, ‘but we do it to keep people safe. From each other. From the really nasty things. We’re the good guys, and that comes with responsibilities. But if Scott didn’t think you could handle it, he’d tell you. He trusts you. We all do. I know you’ll do great.’

‘I just wish you weren’t all leaving. It feels like I’m...like I’m being abandoned. Hayden’s gone too, and that sucks even more. I know she wanted to protect her sister, but I loved her, you know?’

‘Oh, I know,’ you say, again trying not to think about Theo’s destroyed 4x4.

‘How do you do it?’ he asks, and you quirk an eyebrow at him.

‘Do what?’

‘Like, Theo’s your anchor, right? But Theo’s not been here. He doesn’t even know you’re a werewolf. So how can you keep your calm, control your transformations without him? I’ve got all this anger, just bubbling below the surface. Anger at Hayden for leaving, at Scott and the rest of you, at the hunters trying to hurt our friends, and it takes literally everything I’ve got not to just wolf out and attack everyone. How do you do it?’

You ponder that for a moment. You’d never really thought about it before. Whenever you’d had to control your transformations, in moments of stress or during the full moons, you’d just thought of Theo and that had been enough. But was there more to it?

‘I think...it’s more than just Theo. Theo’s what I think about when I need to keep myself calm, sure. How much I miss him, how much I want him to come back. But I don’t think he’s the only thing I’m thinking about. It’s more like what he represents.’

‘Being a dick?’

‘No!’ you scoff, and Liam manages to crack a small smile. ‘When I think of Theo, I think about how far he’s come, the changes he’s gone through. Where he started, and where he ended up - how he’s gone from our greatest enemy to almost an ally.

‘We can’t just wolf out and attack everyone, like you said. That’s what the old Theo would do, and he doesn’t want to be like that anymore - so that’s not how I’m going to act either. Actions have consequences, and we’ve got this power for a reason - we have to use it right.’

‘Yeah, well, he’s still a dick. And if you start quoting Spider-Man at me, I’m going to hit you,’ Liam warns, and now it’s your turn to smile.

‘So maybe Hayden’s not what you should be using as your anchor now,’ you reason. ‘Like when Allison died, and Scott became his own anchor. You need to find someone else. Something else. An idea that you can latch onto, that keeps you grounded, when all you want to do is explode.’

‘You’re pretty wise, you know that?’ Liam says, and you feel yourself blushing.

You wish you’d had this conversation with him before however because, minutes later, everything you’ve said has a horrifying irony to it.

*********

‘Liam! Wait, don’t run off!’ you shout, but it’s too late. Liam disappears into the cloud of smoke billowing out through the tunnels as Lori and Brett retreat the opposite way. Your head snaps between the two options, and then you make the only choice - you have to go help Liam.

You flex your fingers to extend your claws, and blink to activate your werewolf vision before heading into the smoke after him. The high pitched shriek of werewolf sonic devices reverberates off of the tunnel walls - for the first time, you really appreciate how horrible a sound it is. Yet another reminder that being a werewolf has its drawbacks as well as its benefits.

You follow the sounds down corridor after corridor, always one step behind again. Liam’s foot vanishes around a corner ahead of you and you redouble your speed, finally catching up with him as he pulls one of the sonic devices from between two pipes and lets it drop to the floor with a clatter.

‘There’s nobody here,’ he says, his words tinged with realization. He looks up and catches your eye as you slide to a stop next to him. ‘Lori!’

He spins around and starts running again, despite your shouts of ‘Liam! No, wait!’, and the chase begins again.

By the time you catch up to him this time at the foot of a ladder leading up onto the street, you know it’s all too late. The entire situation has spiralled out of control. There’s the horrible sound of a car crash from above, and you can hear the sounds of two heartbeats slowly dimming. 

‘No,’ you whisper. ‘Not now. Not tonight.’ You’ve already been dealt so many blows tonight - how much more can you and the pack take?

Liam, before you can stop him, leaps up the ladder to the surface, fully wolfed out, leaving you down in the darkness. You hear the shock and terror in the voices of the assembled bystanders above, thanks to your own enhanced hearing, and you instinctively step away from the shaft of light that illuminates the ladder.

You’re paralyzed. If you follow Liam, you’ll only make things worse. But if you stay here, you can’t do anything. You had to...had to...what could you do?

You had to find Scott. That’s what you had to do. Scott had to know about all this. And so, against every instinct in your body, you turn away from the ladder and head back into the tunnels, running with reckless abandon this time, with no concern for traps or hunters or anything else. 

Now you know how Liam feels - totally at sea, completely lost as to your next move, desperate for someone to tell you what to do, that it’ll all be okay, that there’s a way out of this mess.

And what a mess it is. 

Brett and Lori are dead. Theo’s missing. Corey’s been targeted. Someone set a trap designed just for you. There are new hunters springing up out of the woodwork. And now, Liam has exposed himself in front of a crowd of people. 

Somehow, you know this is only the beginning, and that things are only going to get worse. And more people will die before this fateful sequence of events reaches its end.


	11. The Consequences Of Fear

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Set during the events of Teen Wolf 06x14: Face-To-Faceless

As Chris Argent leaves the bunker, you feel as if he’s taken what little hope you had left with him. Talking out the revelation that his father, Gerard, was the one behind the resurgence of hunters in Beacon Hills has helped you put everything in perspective - whatever you thought the situation was before, it’s actually a hundred times worse.

You’ve dealt with Gerard in the past, and you’ve never trusted the man as far as you could throw him. He’s as duplicitous and insane as they come and, now that he’s arraying an army against you and your friends, he’s even more dangerous than ever before.

And, unlike last time, now he’s placed a target on your back.

The door of the bunker shuts with a very final clang, leaving you, Lydia, Malia, and Scott in the gloom. No one’s quite sure what to say yet. Scott gives you all a reassuring smile, taking charge.

‘This’ll work. Gerard may be crazy, but even he won’t shoot his own son. He’ll listen to reason, and then we can all sit down together and work this out.’

‘Do you really believe that?’ Malia asks, and you echo the sentiment. There’s no way Gerard will resolve this peacefully.

Scott shrugs. ‘I have to. We can’t give up yet. We do good for this town - we save lives. We’re not the bad guys here.’

‘Are we sure about that?’ You’re surprised to hear that this has come from your own mouth, and everyone turns towards you, confused.

‘I just mean, every time something supernatural turns up, we do our best to stop it. But people get killed. People get hurt. Are we really helping, or are we part of the problem? If we weren’t here, would all the supernatural stuff just stop happening? Maybe the best thing for us to do is leave.’

Lydia looks incredulous. ‘You can’t really believe that. We’ve stopped all of the threats that we’ve faced. We save people. If it wasn’t for us, things would be a hell of a lot worse. Running away would just leave Beacon Hills vulnerable.’

Scott nods enthusiastically. ‘That’s the way the hunters think - they think this is our fault, but it’s not. We’re doing the best we can, and if we weren’t around everyone would be in a lot more danger. Do you really think humans with guns could have stopped the Beast, or the Darach? Maybe eventually, sure, but more people would have gotten hurt in the meantime. We’re on the right side of this.’

Scott puts a hand on your shoulder, a reassuring gesture, and you look up into his face, the most sincere face you’ve ever seen, and can’t help but smile back at him. ‘You’re right, Scott. I didn’t mean anything. It’s all just gotten into my head. Especially now.’

‘What’d you mean?’

Reluctantly, you slide a hand into your pocket and draw out the crossbow bolt that Gerard’s trap fired at you the previous day. You place it on the table with a click, and are greeted by three confused expressions from your friends. Taking a deep breath, you tell them what happened to you, how you had fallen into Gerard’s trap in the tunnels, how it had to have been set specifically for you.

‘He knows I’m a werewolf now. He knows about Theo, how I feel about him. He knows everything, and he tried to kill me. If I hadn’t moved, that bolt would have hit me in the heart, and that would have been the end of it. I guess I’m just feeling a little…’

‘Mortal?’ Lydia guessed, and you give her a grateful nod.

‘Exactly. I’ve always been by your side, right from the beginning, but this is the first time I’ve been in the crosshairs personally - actively targeted for being part of the pack. I’ve never really understood it before, what you guys go through. But now I’m beginning to get some idea. I’m sorry I doubted us. I know what we’re doing is right. It’ll just take me a little while to...readjust.’

‘We’re all here for you,’ Scott confirms, to nods from both Lydia and Malia. ‘I know it’s hard - nothing we’ve ever done has been easy, but this is especially bad. The people we’re trying to save are the ones that’re turning against us, and that hurts. But we’ve weathered worse. We’re better than this. And if Argent can get Gerard to sit down and talk to us, then we’ll get through this too.’

‘And if he doesn’t?’ Malia wonders.

‘Then we’ll do whatever it takes to end this peacefully, even if it means we have to sacrifice something in return,’ Scott says firmly, and now it’s your turn to nod.

He’s right. You’re a pack. You’ll face this together. You’d do that if you were human, and you’ll do it now that you’re a werewolf. Together, there’s nothing that can stop you. Not with Scott leading the charge. You give them your most determined expression, the one you’ve become famous for - no one gets to hurt your friends, especially now that you have the power to protect them.

You collect the crossbow bolt and place it back in your pocket.

‘Do you really want to keep that?’ Lydia asks. ‘It’s a little morbid.’

She’s not wrong. But you know, deep within you, that it holds a lot of meaning. It represents what you stand to lose - your life, your love, your friends. It shows you what the stakes are, and what you’re going to have to face if you want to carry on living. It’s the result of the choices you’ve made, and what you’ll have to live with.

‘I’ll keep hold of it for now,’ you tell her, ‘until the time’s right.’

‘That’s nice and cryptic.’

‘I can’t really explain it. I’ll know. You know?’

Lydia indicates herself, hands swiping down her entire body. ‘Banshee, remember? I know all about weird feelings that don’t make any sense until they do.’

‘Just don’t poke yourself in the eye or something,’ Malia warned. ‘We’ve had enough blind werewolves for one lifetime.’

The meeting seems to be over - you can’t do anything now until Argent gets an answer from Gerard, so you all begin to drift towards the door. Malia and Lydia exit, and Scott is on the threshold when you finally pluck up the courage to mention the other surprise you’d had the previous day - finding Theo’s 4x4, destroyed by, presumably, Gerard and his hunters. 

‘Um,’ you begin, and Scott turns back to you, concerned again. As he does so, the sight of you seems to jog his memory.

‘Oh, did you want to talk about Theo?’ he asks. ‘Sorry, I almost forgot.’

Looking at Scott, you’re marvelled once again at how large his heart his, how he never seems to be overwhelmed by the enormity of everything. You’re all facing down a potential war between humans and supernaturals. There are bigger problems to deal with right now; there always seem to be bigger problems to deal with. And yet, here he is, ready to lend an ear to your personal problems. 

Problems which look tiny in comparison.

For a second, you want to let it all out. To blurt out how worried you are that something awful has happened. That Theo is out there somewhere, hurt. But the sight of Scott, standing there as if nothing is more important than what you’re about to tell him, despite everything you were just discussing, is enough to break your resolve.

‘No, it’s fine. Don’t worry about it. I was just being silly.’ You wave away his concerns with as genuine a smile as you can manage. It’s probably not very convincing, but Scott doesn’t push. He never does. He nods, biting his lip as if he wants to say something, and then turns back to leave.

‘Whenever you want to talk, I’m here,’ he says with a final smile, and then he too disappears from the room, leaving you alone in the bunker. Alone in the silence, alone with your thoughts. 

All alone.

*********

The rest of the day passes in a blur. You’re not sure where the time goes - without the start of the school year to focus on, everything has become part of the meandering passage of time. It’s dangerous, because without something to look forward to, to look towards, you’re left alone with your thoughts too long - which is a recipe for disaster.

You want to go find Theo. You want to go back to the 4x4, search again for something you might have missed the first time, some clue as to where he had been taken, or who had taken him. But with the hunters on the prowl and even Beacon Hills itself turning against you, that’s far too dangerous as well.

To that end, when the time finally comes for the peace summit, you decide to walk to Scott’s instead of taking your bike. You need to clear your head and refocus. There’s so much at stake, you can’t let anything go wrong today. Walking may not be the smartest move right now; it’s the biggest risk you’re willing to take with potential death around every corner. You’re so brave, you think. Yeah, as if.

You thought you were all done with revelations, but now Liam has discovered that the school guidance counselor, Miss Monroe, is actually the new hunter that Gerard has been training. Thanks to Lydia’s intervention, Scott has managed to secure the meeting that Gerard had denied the pack. The end of this could be in sight. Given how hopeless it had all looked earlier that day, there’s now a tiny glimmer that you wouldn’t have thought was possible before. Still, caution is most definitely the best idea right now.

Walking the streets, fresh air in your lungs and the sun overhead, you let your mind wander. Nowhere in particular, and everywhere at once. Reflecting, reminiscing, remembering. You try to let it all go, just for a little while. You close your eyes, checking that the sidewalk is empty so you won’t walk into anyone.

The darkness is almost welcome - shutting out the sensations of the world helps you calm yourself down. It’s only when you focus that you realise quite how anxious you’ve been feeling. Your heart is pounding, quick and heavy. You listen to it, a steady rhythm, and will it to slow down. It’s not easy, and you stop walking as you focus, forcing your pulse to slow to a more regular pattern.

Satisfied, you open your eyes. 

Immediately you can tell - you’re no longer alone.

Across the street, standing just behind a tree so that you would only be able to see him from this vantage point, is Theo.

But it’s not Theo. You can feel your heartbeat racing once again, the terror rising in your throat and your breaths coming in short, sharp gasps. That isn’t Theo - it’s the thing, whatever it is, that taunted you in the woods with Theo’s image.

And you’re sick of it. Sick of seeing his face when you can’t touch it, sick of having the ones you love dangled in front of you like bait to lead you into a trap. First this thing, then Gerard, and now this again - enough is enough. You’re sick of fear - now’s the time for rage.

You cross the street as quickly as you can, adrenaline flooding through your veins, heading directly for the tree, as ‘Theo’ disappears behind it. You follow, expecting to see him standing there, silent, as he was before.

But he’s gone again.

Suddenly, it’s like the entire world is shaking. Your heart is beating a mile a minute, crashing into your ribcage, desperate to escape. The hairs on the back of your neck stand up, and you spin around behind you to see what’s there. 

Nothing. There’s nothing. Which is worse.

It’s as if all the rage you had summoned has been swallowed up by fear - the fire in your stomach is quenched with ice cold water, and you have to get away. You can’t be here any more. You can’t fight this, you have to go, go, go!

You set off at a run - you don’t care where, but you can’t stay here. There’s no way. Whatever that creature was, you had to get away from it. Away from the sight of Theo’s face, slapped onto something that didn’t deserve to look that way.

It had been a long time since the sight of Theo had actively scared you, but now the thought of seeing him again filled you with pure, undiluted terror.

You run, as hard and as fast as you can, swerving around corners and dashing through back alley streets, all the while with the inescapable feeling that if you stopped, if you turned around, Theo’s face would be staring back at you, completely devoid of emotion, and you cannot think of anything more terrifying.

You don’t stop running until you crash into Scott’s back door, hammering on it as hard as you can, as if you had to get inside and away from whatever was behind you or something fatal would happen.

Scott doesn’t answer. You sink to your knees, hand still slapping weakly against the door, shaking, head curled down into your chest. You can’t look up. Can’t look back. Because if you see Theo again, your heart might just explode.

You don’t know how long you sit there, how long that terror grips your entire body, each second where something didn’t happen even more agonizing than the rest. The sound of your name brings you back to reality, slowly, like someone reaching into the dark hole that you’d fallen into and drawing you out, back to the light.

When you finally force your eyes open again, Scott is staring down at you with more concern than ever before, even more than he had shown earlier. Even now, the creature is inspiring fear - fear in Scott for you. Fear in you for Theo. Fear in you for yourself.

‘Are you okay? What happened?’ He drops to his knees, hands on your shoulders, which shake under his touch. You sniff - you hadn’t even realised you were crying - and dive forward, grasping Scott as tightly as you can. He’s the only solid thing in the world, the only constant, the rock around which the rest of the world swirls uncontrollably. Gripping him helps you recentre yourself, bring yourself back to life. 

Your heart rate lowers, your breaths slow, and finally you’re able to look at him.

‘Oh god, Scott, I’m so sorry. It was behind me, so close to me I could feel it. It was...I’ve never been so scared in my life.’

Scott hugs you again, hands clasping behind your back. ‘It’s okay. It’s gone. Whatever it was, it’s gone. You don’t have to be afraid anymore.’

‘It was wearing Theo’s face, Scott. How am I meant to look at him again, when it wore his face? How am I supposed to…’

‘Hey.’ Scott pulls away, looking you dead in the eye. ‘Hey. It wasn’t him. You know how the real Theo makes you feel. There’s no way he’d make you feel like that. You know that. And when you see him again, you’ll forget that you ever felt like this. And in the meantime, I’m here. We’re all here.’

You look up and see Malia and Lydia behind Scott, ready to go to the meeting, every bit as concerned as your alpha. You breath in and out again, and manage to find your way back to your feet. Sometime during your attack, the sun has dropped down below the horizon and night has fallen. 

You’re reminded of once, what feels like a lifetime ago, when the Dread Doctors used a brutal, unfeeling vision of Theo to manipulate you. For days after that, you had been wary of Theo. You had had to convince yourself that that wasn’t him - he wasn’t like that phantom version of him, so cold and vicious. And that had been much worse than this. 

The Dread Doctors’ phantom hadn’t been Theo, anymore than the vision you had just seen had been Theo. You knew Theo. And you wouldn’t let something as insignificant as fear take that away from you.

‘I’m okay. I’m good,’ you tell them, and you’re happy to hear that your confidence reaches your voice. Now, onto more important things. ‘We have to go - we can deal with this thing once we’ve stopped the hunters from trying to murder us all, right?’ you say, trying to sound bright and full of humour again. This time, your friends don’t look convinced.

‘You wanna stay here?’ Scott asks, not as tactfully as he clearly thought he was being. You shake your head.

‘No, I’m good. Honest. If this goes south, you might need all our help.’

‘Are you going to be much help if you’re a crying wreck?’ Malia asks, with no tact at all. 

‘We’re all going,’ Lydia says firmly. ‘We’re a pack. We all go together. And we all need to go - now.’

You nod several times in rapid succession, insisting that you’re okay. 

Facing down Gerard, Monroe, and any other hunters would feel like a cakewalk compared to what you just dealt with. Nothing could ever make you feel that scared again. 

Or so you thought.

*********

‘You shouldn’t have come alone, Scott,’ Monroe taunts as her assembled hunters raise their weapons, all pointing towards your alpha.

‘He didn’t!’ Malia shouts, and that’s your cue. The three of you march out of the tunnel mouth you’ve been concealed within while Scott was negotiating, fanning out behind him, ready to fight.

Scott and Lydia renew their verbal assault, trying to convince Monroe and Gerard that supernaturals aren’t the enemy, that there’s something worse going on. You’re not surprised to hear your own earlier argument about how the pack’s presence seems to make things worse coming out of Monroe’s mouth, but Scott has his own well practised rebuttals. Maybe your little outburst this morning hadn’t been for nothing after all.

But there’s a bigger threat to be dealing with - they have to understand that. The fear creature, whatever it is, is the latest in the long line of enemies that Beacon Hills has faced, and there’s no time for you all to be fighting like this while it’s still out there.

Or is it?

A now-familiar feeling creeps down the back of your neck, just as Lydia realises the same thing.

'Scott, it’s here. It’s here right now!’ she says, voice rising in panic. And then the bullets start flying, and you’re all separated, dodging in different directions as the creature’s influence causes this already tense situation to finally reach breaking point.

Hunters scream and fire randomly, bullets ricocheting around the tunnels with high pitched pings. Scott, Malia, and Lydia are nowhere to be seen. The lights flicker on and off menacingly. You blink, triggering your werewolf eyesight, which proves to be a mistake as a bullet flies towards your head.

You drop to the floor, sliding through the damp water coating the concrete as the bullet strikes the wall instead. You stare up defiantly as Gerard Argent walks towards you, handgun raised and pointed directly at your forehead. You feel your lips recede in a snarl, showing him your fangs.

Surprisingly, he smiles. It’s a fake smile that doesn’t extend to his eyes, and he chuckles under his breath.

‘We meet again. Been through some changes since we last met, I see?’ 

‘Don’t play dumb, Gerard. You know what I am. Who I am.’

‘The idiot that fell in love with the chimera, who was so desperate for affection, so desperate to belong that they chose to become the hideous creature I see before me? Oh yes, I know all about you.’

‘You don’t know a thing about me,’ you say, clambering back to your feet. Gerard’s gun doesn’t leave your face. You’re not sure why he doesn’t shoot, but your muscles are twitching, eager to move you out of the way of his bullets, or towards him to counterattack.

‘You don’t know what love is. What it is to care about people. You’re just a twisted old man with a grudge.’ Gerard’s eyebrows shoot up his forehead in shock, and you feel your hand slipping into your pocket, drawing out his crossbow bolt.

‘I think I have something that belongs to you,’ you tell him, tossing the bolt at his feet. ‘Next time you try and use the ones I love against me, you better be ready to kill me for real, or I’ll make sure you regret it.’

Gerard actually laughs this time. ‘You’ve really fallen for their line, haven’t you? Joined the supernatural side with everything you have. All for something as ridiculous as love.’

‘You wouldn’t know love if it shot you in the ass. I love my friends. I love my town. I love Theo. And that’s why we’ll always win. We do what we do because we love. You just hate us because we can do things you can’t, and we can fight things you can’t. You hate that we’re better than you, but not because we’re supernatural - because we’re just decent human beings, and you’re nothing like us.’

‘You’re not human at all!’ he roars back, and his finger moves minutely as he goes to squeeze the trigger. You plant your feet, ready to dive, when a roar and an explosion shake through the tunnels. Later, you’ll find out that this was Parrish, destroying the fear creature with hellfire, but for now it’s just a convenient distraction.

Gerard is disoriented, as are you, but you recover quicker. You snap out a leg and kick the gun from his hand before turning and running away from the old man. He shouts something to you, probably a parting taunt, but you’re not listening - you don’t care. There’s nothing he can say that will make any difference.

You meet up with Scott, Lydia, Malia and Parrish a few tunnels away. The hunters have all scattered, and the meeting is over. No one is hurt, thankfully, and they’re happy to see you when you approach. The weight of the crossbow bolt in your pocket is gone and when Parrish tells you what he did another weight disintegrates along with it. You’ll never feel that fear again. You’ll never have to worry about something wearing Theo’s face - when you see him again, that sight won’t be marred by something so terrifying.

And that fact is what finally sets your resolve for you.

‘That could have gone better,’ Scott says, and you bring yourself back to the task at hand. 

‘You did your best, Scott. They didn’t come here to negotiate - they came here to kill us. This was only ever going to end one way, and nothing you said to them was going to make any difference,’ you tell him, thinking of your conversation with Gerard just minutes before, and your friends nod.

‘When people want to fight, it’s almost impossible to diffuse a situation with words,’ Parrish says.

‘They were never going to listen to reason,’ adds Lydia.

‘Because they’re not reasonable,’ says Malia, running with the thought. ‘They want to kill us, and we can’t stop them thinking that way, no matter what we do.’

‘Thanks, guys,’ Scott says with a grateful smile. ‘We’ll regroup, and come up with a new plan. Everyone back to my place?’

‘I have to go to the station, I have a shift soon. And, once again, I need new clothes,’ Parrish mourns, hands in the pockets of his flame retardant shorts. ‘I’ll meet you all when I can. This affects me too - they can kill hellhounds, and that doesn’t make me very comfortable.’ 

The hellhound clambers up a nearby ladder and disappears into the night.

‘And there’s something I need to do first,’ you say, surprising everyone else. ‘Something I should have done a while ago.’

‘Are you sure? After what happened earlier, I’d have thought…’ Scott begins, but you shake your head confidently.

‘I’ve got this, Scott. I’ll meet you all there later. I have to do this. And I’m not going to give up until I do.’

‘Is this about Theo?’ Malia asks, oddly observant for a change. ‘Did he do something? Do I need to kill him?’

You actually laugh, the sound echoing oddly around the tunnel walls, and give her a smile. ‘Definitely not. I’ll explain when I see you all again. I’ll be okay. Trust me.’

‘We do,’ Scott says, and you know it’s true. He clasps your shoulder, and nods his approval. ‘We’ll see you later. Both of you,’ he says. He must have sensed what you were planning to do.

As you walk away, you hope Scott is right, with all of your being. With the hunters in disarray after their brush with the fear creature, and the creature itself a charred corpse, now is the best time for you to renew your search. You’ve been apart for too long - it’s time you bring Theo home, for good.

*********

You thought seeing the remains of Theo’s 4x4 would be a little easier a second time, but you were wrong. The charred husk, the sight of all of Theo’s belongings burned and discarded, makes your heart ache all over again. The scent of fear, now extremely familiar to you, still clings to everything. It looks like you were right the first time - there aren’t any traces of Theo’s scent here for you to track. The fire has taken that away from you.

But you’re not going to give up. You pry one of the doors open and gingerly creep inside. Soot gets everywhere, and within seconds you’re black from head to toe. Glass slices your palms and knees as you crawl over the wreckage. Hoodies, trainers, empty pizza boxes, you swat it all aside as you scurry around the vehicle, trying to find something you can use. One hint of Theo’s scent - a hair, a sweaty sock, anything that had survived the blaze.

A noise outside catches your attention, and your head snaps up like a deer that’s just heard a wolf closing in. As quickly as you can, you extricate yourself from the car and blink, werewolf vision assisting as you gaze out at the empty street.

‘If someone’s out here, you better not try anything. After the day I’ve had, I’m really not in the mood,’ you shout, hoping you sound anywhere near as confident and strong as you wanted to be.

You take a step forward, away from the hedges and back onto the sidewalk. You look from one end of the deserted road to the other, but you can’t see anyone. Maybe you’d imagined it. Maybe it’s just paranoia, left over from the fear creature’s destruction. 

For the second time that day, the sound of a gunshot aimed directly at you reaches your ears, and you step backwards. A plume of concrete puffs up as the bullet hits the sidewalk at your feet instead. So much for the hunters being disorganized.

Another bullet follows, and then you’re off and running for what feels like the hundredth time today as the sniper, wherever they are, continues to take pot shots at you. You slide side to side, trying to make yourself a more difficult target, and slip between two buildings into an alleyway. 

Too late, you realise your mistake - it’s a dead end, a tall brick wall rising up to meet you at the end of the alley. Another bullet blasts into the side of the nearest building, and you know that you’re pinned. You’ve fallen right into the hunter’s trap.

You slap your pockets, trying to find your cell phone to call for backup, but it’s gone. In your haste to escape Theo’s 4x4 and see what was going on, it must have fallen out. You’re on your own.

There’s only one way out of here, you reason. Up. You flee to the base of the wall, flicking out your claws as you run. As you near it, you coil your legs under you and jump as high as your supernatural abilities will allow. At the apex of your jump, you strike out with both hands, driving your claws into the mortar between the brick. It’s painful as hell, literally punching a brick wall, but if it’s a choice between this and being shot to death, you know which one you choose.

You begin to climb, sneakers helping you grip the wall as you alternate hands, making slow progress as you head towards the top of the building. Behind you, you can hear the sounds of approaching hunters - guns are being cocked, bullets loaded, and there’s an excited muttering as they close in on what they think is trapped prey. You’re far too resourceful for that; if you’re going down, it won’t be like this. 

The lip of the roof is inches above you. One more handhold and you’ll be able to reach up and drag yourself onto the rooftop, and from there you could make your escape.

So when an unpleasantly familiar face appears above you, a large rifle held in both hands, you almost lose your grip. So close, and yet so far.

‘Schrader?’ you ask in astonishment, as the former Eichen House orderly cocks the rifle and aims at you. There’s nowhere to go. You can’t go up, and you can’t go down. You’re totally, completely trapped. They’d out-maneuvered you at every turn, and now you were at Schrader’s mercy.

‘Nice to see someone remembers my name,’ he says, and fires. The bullet strikes you in the shoulder, and you feel yourself losing grip, the concrete wall slipping through your fingers. You scrabble, trying to regain purchase, but it’s too late - the force of the bullet knocks you backwards, and you topple away from the wall, falling to the alley floor below you with a deafening crunch.

You’ve broken something. Lots of somethings. There’s no way you can get back up and fight, as much as you want to. Lights dance about the edges of your vision, and shadowy figures crowd around you as your eyes begin to close. The pain is incredible, but it seems so far away, as if you’d left your body behind, and it was someone else describing the sensation to you. 

As the world fades to black around you, your final thought is, of course, for your friends. Would they come looking for you when they realised you hadn’t come back? What was the last thing you said to them all - what if it was the last thing you ever got to tell them? Would losing you distract them from the larger fight? Would dying inspire them to fight back, or just cause more fighting?

And, if this was where you were going to die, who was going to rescue Theo now?


	12. Reasons To Fight

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Set during the events of Teen Wolf 06x15 - Pressure Test

‘What are you doing? They don’t have anything to do with this!’

That’s the first thing you hear as you slowly force your way back to consciousness. You’re bound to a gate with plastic cable ties, pulled so tight that you can barely feel your hands, in what looks like an abandoned warehouse, racked out with dusty metal shelving. Despite the bullet wound and your fall, nothing seems to be to broken - at least, not anymore. Your entire body aches, like you’ve been trampled by a stampede, and it hurts to move, but the sound of that voice, so familiar, makes you thrash your head to the side, pain be damned.

Because it’s him. It’s Theo - you’ve found him at last. There are two other people bound to the gate between you, obscuring him from view, but you’d know that voice anywhere. There’s panic in it as he yells at Schrader, who is pacing backwards and forwards in front of the four of you, and it takes you a moment to register why.

Theo doesn’t know that you’re a werewolf now. To him, it looks as if Schrader has just kidnapped an innocent human being. Well, he’s in for a shock if you manage to get out of this alive.

Speaking of shocks, Schrader chooses that moment to press a button on the control panel he’s holding in his hand, sending thousands of volts of electricity through your already damaged body. It’s the most intense pain you’ve ever felt, like hundreds of spiders crawling across your skin with needles for legs, and you can’t help but cry out in pain.

‘Theo!’ you scream, and he yells your own name back at you, even more panicked than before. It’s definitely him - there’s no doubt about it now. So close, and yet so far.

‘Seems like you two know each other,’ Schrader taunts. ‘Something you want to tell me?’

‘I thought you didn’t have any questions,’ Theo spits, and Schrader presses his button once again in response. The pain returns, for longer this time, and you’re left panting for breath once it finally subsides.

You pull against your bonds, but they’re not going to give. They cut even deeper into your wrists, and you wince. Schrader seems to have turned his attention away from you and the other two captives, focusing entirely on Theo now. You can hear him taunting the man, which seems unwise considering your complete lack of control of the situation, but your mind is foggy and pain is blinding your sense of reason, so there’s nothing much you can do but hang limply from the gate, trying to clear your mind so that you can think of a way out of this mess.

‘No, they fired you, didn't they? Did you get caught trying to stick helpless patients with needles again? Or did they catch you trying to stick them with something else?’ you hear Theo asking, and then everything is white as the electricity returns again, blasting all of your senses to pieces. Everything is obliterated by pain, unending pain, please god, you just want it to stop, it’s too much, please…

The next thing you feel is a tender touch of a hand on your own, and you force your eyes open. Suddenly all of the pain is worth it, and you would go through it a hundred times over, because for the first time in months you’re looking at the man you love. Theo Raeken stands before you, soaking wet and smirking, exactly like the first day you met him.

He flicks his claws out and slashes the bonds that hold you to the gate. You topple forward, legs like jelly as your muscles re-adjust to their own electrical impulses after Schrader’s torture, but Theo is there, taking you into his arms and helping you to your feet.

You push yourself upright, using Theo’s own body as support, and as you look up at him you feel the tears begin, pooling around the upturned corners of your mouth as you smile widely. After all this time, all this hardship, he’s back. You’re together once again. His smirk becomes a smile, and you gather him into a tight embrace, squeezing him so tight that it’s almost uncomfortable. His hands are warm on your back, and his presence under your fingers is so reassuring that it’s like he never left.

‘Do you two need a room?’ says one of the others that were held captive with you, and a small voice in the back of your head tells you that you should be embarrassed, but you can’t seem to bring yourself to care. Instead, you break the embrace and kiss Theo as hard as you can, hands tangling in his hair, which has gotten much longer in the past three months. The taste of him is like water in the middle of the desert, a lifeline that convinces you to keep going - despite everything that’s going wrong in Beacon Hills right now, something has finally gone right.

‘Theo,’ you say simply as the kiss comes to an end, and he says your name under his breath, like a secret he’s been keeping all this time.

‘I’m sorry,’ he says suddenly, and you can’t think what he could possibly have to be sorry for. ‘For leaving. For getting you hurt. For...for everything.’

The remorse in his voice is the most genuine you’ve ever heard him sound, and it’s all totally unfounded. ‘It’s alright, Theo. I’m fine. We’re fine. I knew we’d find our way back to each other again - we just took a few detours along the way, that’s all.’

‘I never should have left. I’m sorry,’ he says again.

You shake your head tenderly, and just smile. ‘There’s nothing to be sorry for. It’s all going to be okay now. We’re going to be okay.’

Again, the other members of your ragtag band of escapees break through your reverie.

‘You just gonna leave him here?’ the young boy asks, indicating the gate where you notice Theo has trussed up Schrader with enough cable ties to keep him there from now till eternity.

Theo turns defensive as he addresses the other two, and you listen in silence as he discovers that they are a part of Satomi’s werewolves, like poor Brett and Lori. Theo, in his own unique way, manages to convince them that they should seek out Scott - that he can help them. Like he helped Theo, you think. Theo’s blunt about it all, and guarded, but he’s trying to help just as much as he’s trying not to look like it.

The other two seem to take his advice, and they leave the room. Theo takes one final look at Schrader, and turns the control panel that he had been using to shock you all over on the table, keeping the button depressed. Schrader roars in pain through the gag that Theo has shoved in his mouth, and you can’t help but feel very little remorse for your torturer.

‘The power will short out in a few minutes, he’ll be fine,’ Theo assures you.

‘You’ll get no argument from me. After everything he's done, he can deserves a little shock therapy,’ you tell him, and the two of you head out after your new charges, stepping out of the building into the parking lot. Theo begins clicking the car keys that he took from Schrader, trying to find the car that they belong to.

‘Where have you been, Theo?’ you ask him. ‘I found your car - it looked like you’d been living there. Why would you do that, when you could have stayed with me?’ You try to keep your voice level, but both anger and sadness creep in at the edges of your words. The other two werewolves are out of earshot, waiting off to the side for Theo to tell them where to go, so you feel like you can ask him without worrying they’ll eavesdrop.

Theo is cryptic, however. ‘I’ve been...around. I’ll tell you all about it when we get the chance. When we’re safe again. Once we get back to Scott.’

You want to argue, but it doesn’t feel like the right time. Theo’s right - you’re still in danger out here, and Schrader’s friends could come back at any time. You need to prioritize right now. No more questions until you’re back with your friends.

Theo has other ideas though.

‘Why did Schrader take you? I thought he was just targeting supernaturals?’

He’s not looking at you, clicking the car keys at more cars with no success. You had hoped to save this for later too, but now is as good a time as any, you guess. It’s a miracle that Theo hasn’t realised the answer to his own question, or smelt the change in your scent, but he’s obviously preoccupied right now. You reach out and take his free hand, pulling him back around towards you.

When he meets your eyes, curiosity and impatience in his expression, you blink and activate your werewolf vision. You see your yellow eyes reflected back in his own, and realization and shock sweep across his face now.

‘You...how? Why?’ It doesn’t sound accusatory, more questioning. He’s not mad, just confused.

‘Scott,’ you reply simply. ‘When you left, I asked him to bite me. I was tired of always being in the way, of not being able to protect the people I care about. The people I love. And now, I can.’

‘But now you’re a target, like the rest of us. They’re going to try and kill you,’ he says incredulously. ‘Why would you open yourself up to that?’

‘They’ve already tried, more than once,’ you tell him, but shake your head as he goes to ask you to elaborate. ‘I wanted this, Theo. I couldn’t stand on the sidelines and let you guys do this all on your own anymore. I hope you can understand.’

Theo stops, mouth half open, thoughts half formed, and he takes a second to consider, as you’d hoped he would. You give him a moment, and then finally he speaks.

‘I get it. I do. If I was in your shoes, I probably would have asked Scott to turn me as soon as he had the power. And I’m not thrilled that you’re going to be in danger.’

You go to argue but he continues before you’re able; his next words genuinely surprise you.

‘But, let’s face it, you were always going to be in danger. You’re right - you’re always there with the pack, with your friends, with me, so at least now you can protect yourself. We can fight, side by side. And,’ he says with a mischievous smirk, ‘now we match.’

He flashes his own yellow eyes, and you smile gratefully. He understands. He’s concerned, but he’s not going to stop you. He’s not going to get mad. He gets how important this is to you. Now, you can truly be partners in every sense of the word.

Although when you’re both arrested by the Sheriff and held for murder along with the two newcomers, partners in crime wasn’t exactly what you had in mind, you realise.

  *********

The four of you wait in the holding cell at the Sheriff’s station, hoping to see someone with some sense appear through the only door to the room. The last time you were here together, Theo had been on one side of the bars, while you were on the other. This time however you’re together, and that makes the fact that you could possibly be charged for a murder you didn’t commit a little easier to bear.

Jiang and Tierney, whose names you’ve now learned, are sitting on the bench, quiet and subdued. You’re on the floor, stretched out so that you can shake the aches and pains from your body. Your healing abilities have kicked in, but you’re not back up to a hundred percent just yet. Theo however is pacing around in a fury, yelling alternatively at the security camera and your new ‘friends’ about who they might or might not have murdered.

‘We’re not murderers!’ Jiang yells suddenly, and Tierney is instantly on the defensive.

‘Jiang!’ she yells firmly, but he’s swept up in the emotions, and carries on despite her.

‘If you’d been there, then you’d know we didn’t have a choice!’

‘Jiang, shut up!’

‘Theo, what are you doing?’ you ask. ‘Leave them alone. The Sheriff’ll be here soon. Or Scott. They’ll sort this out.’

‘We don’t need to wait that long. That’s basically an admission of guilt - and it lets us off the hook. We can do more from outside than we can in here,’ he tells you, and turns back to the camera. ‘We good?’

Theo’s plan pays off, and within minutes the Sheriff has returned and reluctantly released both of you. He gives you one of his best judgemental looks, as if he still wonders what you see in the troublemaking chimera, but you shrug and thank him for letting you out.

‘Theo just needs to sign for his belongings, and then he can go. Go see Parrish, Raeken,’ he says, and Theo slopes away after telling you that he’ll meet you outside in a few minutes. After so long apart you don’t want to leave him alone again, but you know you’re being silly. He’ll only be a little while - he’s not leaving you again.

‘Before you do that though,’ the Sheriff adds once Theo has left the room, ‘there are some people here you might want to see.’

You follow the Sheriff through the police station to his office, and catch a group of very familiar scents as you do so. When you push the door open to see your pack, you’re almost ready to smile and cry all over again.

‘You had us worried!’ Scott says as a greeting, pulling you towards him in a rough hug. ‘We thought…’

‘We thought one of the hunters had killed you,’ Malia finishes for him, and you laugh as Lydia rolls her eyes. Behind them both, Liam waves you a sheepish greeting.

‘I’m fine, honestly guys. I would have called, but I lost my phone,’ you reassure them. ‘In fact, I’m more than fine. I did it. I found him.’

‘You did? You found Theo?’ Scott asks, and you nod.

‘It’s a long story, but yeah, I did. He’s okay. A little worse for wear, but then so am I after what happened last night.’

‘Oh really?’ Malia says, waggling her eyebrows suggestively, but you snort and shake your head, feeling the blush rising in your cheeks.

‘Not like that!’

‘Anyway,’ Scott says, redirecting the conversation back to more pressing matters, ‘We’re all glad you’re okay. The Sheriff caught us up on what happened - don’t scare us like that again. And I’m glad Theo’s okay too. It’s the other two we have to worry about.’

‘And that’s where I come in,’ the Sheriff says, and you let him and Scott take control of the conversation as they discuss what to do with the two potential murderers sitting in the holding cell. You want to slip away, want to get back to Theo as quickly as you can, but you can’t leave this discussion right now. Your town is still in danger, and Theo isn’t going anywhere. Not this time.

The other werewolf in the room, the one that Scott had discovered in his house earlier that night, also pipes up at this point. With Monroe and her hunters on the warpath, it’s probably a good idea to get Jiang and Tierney out of here, as Scott says.

You’re not sure what they did, if they really did murder anyone. But really, it doesn’t matter. If you hand them over to Monroe then they’re going to be executed, and that’s not justice, even if they actually are guilty. That’s not how Scott does things, so it’s definitely not how you do things either. Although the Sheriff makes a good point too - he can’t just let two possible murder suspects leave, even if they are kids, and werewolves to boot.

‘Look, if there’s a problem-’ the Sheriff begins, but his thought is disrupted as an enormous amount of light suddenly pours in from his window. A quick glance to the outer offices tells you that all of the windows are the same - someone’s outside, and it doesn’t take a genius to guess who.

You feel your blood rising within you; you’ve been kidnapped, held hostage, and tortured within the last twelve hours, and you’re not really looking to repeat any of that. Being surrounded, being trapped again in such a short space of time is not doing it for you. In fact, you feel afraid - it’s a very familiar fear - but that can’t be, can it? Parrish destroyed the fear creature. You watched him set it ablaze.

You’re just dealing with the hunters now...right?

  *********

 

As Parrish mobilises the deputies and the Sheriff heads out to confront Monroe, the rest of the pack retreats back into the Sheriff’s office to monitor her hunters. You take the opportunity to slip away for a moment and see if you can find Theo. If bullets are going to start flying, you want to know he’s safe.

You find him pacing the foyer of the station, backwards and forwards in frustration. You lean on the doorway and cross your arms, trying to act calm and collected when all you really want to do, once again, is run.

‘You keep doing that and they’ll charge you for new floor tiles. That's destruction of police property, you know.’

Theo stops and looks up, relieved that it’s you.

‘Come on, we’ve got to get out of here. Those hunters are back, and they’re going to slaughter us all if we just sit here.’ He grabs your hand and goes to pull you away towards an exit, but you stand fast. Your hands remain linked as he looks back in exasperation.

‘We can’t stay here, c’mon!’

‘I’m not going anywhere, Theo. You already knew that before you saw me - you know me. There’s no way I’m leaving my friends right now.’

‘Then they can come too! We should all be leaving!’

You feel like you should be disappointed, but you’re not. After everything Theo’s gone through, and you know there’s definitely things that happened in the past three months that you don’t know about yet, it makes sense that he’d want to get away from the hunters. He doesn’t want to get hurt anymore. But he’s lost sight of something, and it’s up to you to remind him what it was.

‘This isn’t who you want to be,’ you say to him, and he turns his head sideways, as if he can’t bear to face the truth you’re about to tell him. ‘This isn’t you, Theo.’

‘Yeah, well, maybe it is,’ he replies, but it’s feeble, like he’s not convinced of that himself.

‘I know it’s hard - I know you want to be safe, to get away from all this. But that’s the old Theo talking. The one that would do anything to get what he wanted; murder, manipulate, betray. Or leave in the middle of a battle to save his own skin.

‘You brought Jiang and Tierney to Scott. You saved them, as much as you may want to think that you didn’t. You’re helping, in your own way. And you can’t stop now. We have to stay, and we have to fight, if it comes to it. I know it goes against all your instincts, but you know it’s true. We have to help Scott, any way we can.’

Theo screws up his face, wrinkling his nose in disgust and still avoiding your eyes. He knows you’re right. It takes him a few seconds of indecision, but you know he’ll fall down on the right side of the argument. And sure enough, if reluctantly, he nods his head.

‘Alright, alright, I’ll stay. For now. What can I do to help?’

This time you pull him towards you, and he trails behind you like a lost puppy as you drag him back to the Sheriff’s office, to the rest of the pack. Of course, when he overhears their conversation and enters by telling them that it’s not his job to keep murderers alive and asking if he should kill the girl Scott found in his house, you facepalm from the doorway behind him. He still has a long way to go, clearly.

But, when you all go to march out of the police station with Jiang and Tierney behind you, he’s there with you all. He may have wanted to run, to flee and leave the rest of the pack to fend for themselves, but he’s seen the error of his ways. He had backslid a little - and after three months of trying to survive alone and then being kidnapped and tortured, who could blame him? - but he’s still there, claws out, ready to fight if need be. And you’re there with him, side by side, your own claws extended, ready to go into battle together for the first time as equals.

Thankfully, or unfortunately, depending on how you look at it, it doesn’t get that far. The Sheriff and Parrish arrive just in time to stop you all from leaving, so it’s back to the drawing board. You just hope Scott can come up with a new plan before something else goes wrong.

  *********

 

‘By the way, I’m still working on my anger,’ Liam says, pushing past you on his way out of the bathroom. You poke your head around the door to see Theo, laid out on the floor, one hand on his nose and the other raised into the air in defeat.

‘Good to know,’ he moans, and you roll your eyes as you pull him to his feet.

‘Not the best way to make friends,’ you inform him, and he shakes his head, pinching his nose to stop the bleeding.

‘Yeah, tell me about it. Everyone seems to be even more on edge than usual. Granted, I may not have been the most subtle, but I didn’t think it’d be that easy to set the ticking time bomb off.’

Of course, Theo doesn’t know about the fear creature. In all of the confusion of the past few hours, no one has had time to tell him about it. No time like the present, you guess, and lean on the sink as he dabs at his nose with a wad of tissue paper.

‘There’s something else going on,’ you begin, and Theo gives you an inquisitive look to let you know he’s listening. ‘When we rescued Stiles and saved the town from the Wild Hunt, something else got out. Something worse.’

‘Worse than a Nazi werelion douchebag?’ Theo asks, running the tap and splashing water on his face.

‘It’s some kind of fear monster. It amps up your paranoia and makes you terrified of everything. Even the people you care about.’

‘You say that like you’re speaking from experience,’ Theo guesses, and you sigh as you tell him about your encounters with the creature, first in the Beacon Hills woods, then in the town streets when it had chased you to Scott’s house, and then at the fake peace summit in the tunnels where you thought you’d finally gotten rid of the thing.

‘I guess whatever Parrish did didn’t take - it’s still here, it’s in here with us. It’s why Malia was so edgy earlier with you, why the deputies all seem so jumpy. It’s in here, and it’s making things worse.’

‘It had my face?’ he asks. You’d hoped he’d gloss over that detail, but of course you’re not that lucky. ‘Are you scared of me?’ His voice is weak, wounded, as if your admissions have punched him in the heart, and you want nothing more than to convince him that that’s not the case.

He’s finished cleaning up his busted nose now, so you slip off the side of the sink and take his hands, still clammy from the sink water.

‘No, of course not. I know you - we’ve been through too much together. You wouldn’t hurt me.’

‘Never,’ he says, taking one hand from yours and stroking your cheek tenderly. It’s not a side of Theo that you see when the rest of the pack is around, and while the bathroom isn’t the most romantic setting, you appreciate the gesture nonetheless. ‘I’d never hurt you. Or your friends. Not anymore.’

‘I know,’ you reassure him. ‘That’s how I knew that it couldn’t have been you. Even with all the fear, even with my heart in my mouth and my brain in a total scramble, I knew it wasn’t you. It couldn’t be you.’

‘All I want to do is kiss you right now,’ he whispers.

‘There’s nothing stopping you,’ you breathe, closing the gap between you and gripping the collar of Theo’s hoodie, ready to pull him in even closer. Your brief kiss earlier was amazing, especially after so long apart, but you’re hungry for more. You’ve got three months worth of kisses to make up for, after all. Sure, there are hunters at the door and you could all get shot to death in the meantime, but being this close to Theo again, it makes it all seem so insignificant, just for a moment.

And then you hear a very familiar whistle and the distinctive sound of a crossbow bolt smacking into a wall. You’re getting dangerously comfortable with weapons being fired in your vicinity, you think, the moment between you and Theo shattered as if the bolt had pierced it itself.

You fold Theo’s hoodie back down where your hands had creased it, and then place your hand on his chest.

‘I guess we better go see what’s happened now,’ you sigh. ‘There’ll be plenty of time for this after we get out of this mess.’

‘One for the road then,’ Theo says and ducks around you to place a quick kiss on your lips before disappearing from the room without so much as a word. Your fingers touch your mouth gently as it tingles from his kiss, and you feel yourself smile at the promise of more to come.

Then you steel yourself and return to the police station proper to see what fresh hell the hunters and the fear creature have unleashed now.

  *********

 

You can’t believe what you’re hearing. There’s no way this is Scott’s real plan. It can’t be. Not after all of this. You can’t let the hunters win, you can’t let fear win. But as you look your alpha, your best friend, in the eyes, you can see the defeat plain as day as he addresses his father.

‘Okay. We’ll go.’

The rest of the evening passes in a daze. Jiang and Tierney are taken away by Agent McCall and his FBI escort, and the hunters slowly disperse from their perimeter around the police station. The smug look on Monroe’s face should make your blood boil, but instead you just feel as if someone has frozen you in place and is wheeling you through these events as an observer, with no way to impact anything you see or hear. You’re left standing outside the police station, watching the trucks disappear back into the night.

‘I know this isn’t what you wanted,’ says a voice, and it takes you a moment to realise that it’s Theo. He’s slipped a hand into yours and is looking up at you with regret, but also a hint of hopeful optimism as well.

‘What?’

‘This. I know how you think - you think it feels like giving up. But maybe this is the right play. Maybe leaving Beacon Hills is the best for everyone. Maybe this is how we save the most lives.’

You wish you could believe that, but Theo’s right - it does just feel like giving up. Like you’re letting the bad guys win, and all without putting up a fight. But you can’t articulate your thoughts properly, a fog has descended on your brain, so all you can say is, ‘Maybe.’

‘We can go anywhere,’ Theo continues, and his smile gets even bigger as he grasps the possibilities laid out ahead of you. ‘We can start a new life somewhere else - do anything, be anyone we want to be. Together. Doesn’t that sound like a win to you?’

‘Yeah, it does,’ you reply reluctantly, ‘but it’s not really a win if we don’t get to play, is it? It’s the prize I want, but it doesn’t feel right to abandon the place we’ve fought so hard to protect when it needs us the most.’

Theo is unsure what to say to that. He, like you, just wants you both to be safe and happy. But now he’s conflicted - the old Theo would be okay with all this. How would the Theo he wants to be react?

Luckily he gets a little more time to work it out, as Scott takes that moment to appear from inside the Sheriff’s station and approach you both.

‘I know that was hard, and I’m sorry we had to do it,’ he begins, and you nod sadly.

‘I don’t understand, Scott. I can’t believe that-’

‘It’s okay,’ he interrupts, and you’re about to yell at him that it’s not okay, nothing about this is okay, when he continues with, ‘We’re not abandoning Beacon Hills. Or, I’m not, anyway. We just had to convince my dad, and Monroe, that we were. That’s step one.’

Your world suddenly seems brighter, your body seems to thaw, and you can feel yourself coming back to life. Your anger rushes away as quickly as it arrived, and you can actually feel yourself smiling. Of course this was all a fake-out. There’s no way Scott would leave. Not a chance. You feel stupid for doubting him, and fire off a quick question.

‘You mean you’ve got a plan?’

‘Not yet. But we’re definitely not giving up that easily. I’ve already spoken to everyone else - we’re all going to pretend to leave, and then meet up at Deaton’s tomorrow. Then we’ll work out what we’re going to do next.’

The despair you felt not moments before vanishes entirely, and you have to stop yourself from smiling so wide your face aches. Then the confidence that Scott exudes lessens, just a little, as he regards both you and, for the first time since he left the building, Theo.

‘You guys don’t have to stay, you know. You’ve just found each other again. I’d totally understand if you did want to leave. No one would judge you if you just took off into the sunset. We’d come find you once this was all over. I’d get it, I would.’

You look from Scott to Theo, who can’t help but look a tiny bit hopeful that you’d say yes. That you’d take off with him and not look back, leave Beacon Hills behind and start your life together. But he also knows you. Like he said, he knows how you think, and he smirks knowingly to illustrate the point too.

‘We’re not going anywhere, Scott,’ he tells your alpha, and he join hands with you again, a united front. ‘And I’m here, if you’ll have me. It doesn’t mean I’m part of the pack, or whatever, but if you need my help, I’m here.’

Scott smiles gratefully, and claps you both on your shoulders.

‘I’ll see you both tomorrow then,’ he says, and then departs, leaving you and Theo alone together in the darkness.

You turn your smile on Theo, and wrap your arms around him. Resting your head on his shoulder, you murmur into his ear, ‘Thank you. I know that was hard for you. But it means a lot, knowing that you’ll stick around. That we can face this together.’

‘Hey, of course,’ he whispers back, one hand absently tracing the curve of your back. ‘This place means a lot to you, and I know you’d never abandon your friends. I’m sorry I asked you to earlier. That’s not who you are. And it’s not who I want to be, either. It just takes a little while to convince myself of that. I’m not exactly thrilled at having to risk our lives again, but you’ve already convinced me once tonight - this is my fight too, whether I like it or not.’

‘You really mean that?’

‘Of course. But I’m not just fighting for Beacon Hills,’ he says, and you scowl in confusion.

‘What’d you mean?’

‘I’m fighting for you. For that life we just talked about. For the opportunity to have that, no strings attached.’

You break the embrace and look at him, really look at him. The determination in his eyes looks weirdly familiar, and it takes you a moment to place it - it’s the same look that you have often given him, and your friends. Now you know how they felt, falling under that fierce protection. You push a strand of his long hair out of his eyes, link your hands behind his neck, and kiss him.

You’ve kissed a few times since you found him again, but this is the first time you’ve been able to take your time. There are no werewolves relying on you, or hunters at the gate, or fear monsters creeping around in the darkness. It’s just you, Theo, and the promise of tomorrow.

It’s a kiss of devotion, a promise to stay together no matter what happens next. You bob and wave with the motion of it, melting into each other as if you can share your experiences from the last few months through touch, all of the unspoken worries and dreams and fears passing between you through this one kiss.

You’re the first to pull away, and Theo looks visibly disappointed.

‘We can pick up where we left off in a little while,’ you promise him. ‘But now I need to convince my parents that I’m actually leaving this time.’

Theo smirks craftily. ‘Tell them you’re running away with me. Bad boy boyfriends are always a good excuse,’ he says, and you actually laugh for what feels like the first time in days. You’ve missed Theo, even more than you thought you had, and having him back, having him fighting alongside you, is exactly what you need right now.

The following day, when poor Mason, the final member of your pack, is let in on the secret, the pair of you are standing together in the back of the animal clinic, your friends arrayed around you. Theo leans up against the wall, quiet and pensive as he looks on, and you nudge him gently with your shoulder, giving him a small smile. He locks eyes with you and smiles back, before turning his attention back to the understandably frantic Mason.

‘Then what happens next?’ he asks, incredulous that you’re all still in town. The illusion had to be perfect - everyone had to believe that you were gone, even him. But now you’re all united once more, and the counterattack can begin. ‘We fight back, right?’

You look around the room to your friends: Lydia, Malia, Mason, Corey, Liam, Scott, and, of course, Theo. You’re all here for the same reason - Beacon Hills is your home. The people you care about live here, and there’s no way you’re going to give up now. You’ll stay. You’ll fight. You’ll win.

Scott looks at the expectant Mason and sums it all up for you, a confident grin on his face.

‘What did you think we were going to do? Run?’


	13. How Far We've Come, How Far We've Yet To Go

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Set during the events of Teen Wolf 06x16: Triggers

Theo’s eyelashes tickle your palms as he blinks under your touch, your hands clamped tightly over his eyes.

‘No peeking, Raeken,’ you warn him, trying to sound intimidating, and then immediately laughing instead.

‘I don’t like surprises,’ he warns you in turn, but the tickling sensation ceases, so he’s listening for now at least. You lead him out of the animal clinic into the night, a smattering of stars overhead like spectators to your love.

‘I know, but you’re going to make an exception for this one, I swear.’ You maneuver him into position and step back, taking your hands away in the process. ‘Okay, you can look.’

You’re behind Theo, and you can see the tension in his shoulders begin to relax. He was on edge without even knowing it - prepared for an attack, rather than your gift. The lives you all lead, the reactions you have to the world around you; the supernatural hasn’t just been a blessing, you realise, not for the first time. But maybe for tonight you can have a little happiness.

‘How did you afford this?’ he asks incredulously, looking back at you with wonder on his face, eyes wide and mouth agape. 

Sitting under a street light, illuminated like it was on centre stage, is a brand new 4x4 to replace Theo’s original that the hunters had destroyed when they captured him. It’s almost exactly the same, right down to the plush interior and the fancy hubcaps. You couldn’t replace the clothes that he had lost, at least not entirely, and you couldn’t erase the torture that he had experienced at the hands of the hunters, but you could do this for him. 

It had taken all of the money that you had saved to run away with, but it was worth it to see the look on his face as he takes in the sight of the 4x4. You smile, happy that he’s happy, and toss him the keys. 

Theo plucks them out of the air as they soar towards him, and he clicks the security alarm button, popping the doors open. He slides into the front seat behind the wheel, inhaling deeply, enjoying the new car smell. You jump into the passenger seat beside him and tap the dashboard.

‘It’s not the same one, but I did my best. It was so sad, seeing it all burnt out and ruined like that, and I knew you wouldn’t have any wheels otherwise.’

Theo looks over at you, with a genuinely grateful smile. ‘It’s perfect, I love it. I can’t believe you did this for me.’

‘Besides, how else are we going to get out of here once this is all over?’ you ask, and he smiles even wider.

‘You really mean that?’

‘Of course I mean it, Theo. Once we’ve saved the town, again, and this has all blown over, we’re getting out of here. Driving off into the sunset for our happy ending. I’d say we’ll have earned it by then.’

‘You wanna go for a drive?’ he asks. ‘I know we’ve gotta meet up again tomorrow, but Scott doesn’t need us tonight. We can break her in.’

‘That sounds perfect,’ you agree, and Theo puts the truck into gear and pulls away from the clinic, driving off into the night.

You don’t take any particular route, other than actively avoiding the no doubt hunter infested high school, just enjoying each other’s company as the houses and buildings zip past you at speed. It helps both of you relax, seeing the world disappearing into blurs of light and darkness outside your windows. Neither of you speak for the longest time, listening to the purr of the engine and the shift of the gears as Theo puts the vehicle through its paces. 

Finally you speak, trying to ask your question as casually as possible. ‘So, is there anything you want to talk about?’

Theo’s expression turns guarded, but there’s no hostility in it. His gaze is set, but he’s still smiling as he replies, ‘I know what you’re asking. But not yet. It’s all still a little too fresh right now. Is that okay?’

You reach out, mirroring a gesture you performed once before, placing your own hand over his as he wraps his fingers around the gear stick. You caress his knuckles absently as you respond, delicately feeling the bones just beneath the surface of his skin and the hairs on the back of his hand standing up at your touch. 

‘Of course. I don’t want to pressure you. I won’t mention it again if you don’t want me to. I just want you to know that I’m here if and when you want to tell me what happened, why you were away for so long.’

‘I know,’ he says softly, sadness heavy in his words. There’s pain there, so much pain, and you ache with the knowledge that you can’t help him bear it. But it’s his decision, and you’ll respect it, even if you don’t like it.

‘You know what else I know?’ he asks this time, as he pulls to the side of the road. You’ve driven out into Beacon Hills woods, as if you were actually leaving town. Probably best that way - it’ll help maintain the illusion that the pack is actually gone, at least for now. 

‘I know that I love you,’ he says, and now it’s your turn to smile gratefully. You slap him playfully on the shoulder in response.

‘You’re just saying that because I bought you a car.’

‘Well, that’s definitely a factor,’ he admits, and you hit him a little harder this time. 

‘Asshole.’

‘Hey, I do mean it though,’ he says, leaning across the seats towards you. ‘I love you. I love that we’ve found our way back to each other. And I love that we’re here together, right now, despite everything that’s going on. We’re here. We can deal with whatever comes next.’

You reach across the gap yourself, cupping his cheek with your hand and drawing him towards you for a kiss, slow and sensual. 

‘I love you, too.’ 

And then, an idea strikes. You look over your shoulder coyly at the back seat. ‘Let me show you just how much. We can break in something else, too. If you want.’

The hunger on Theo’s face says it all as he leans towards you again for another kiss, this time much rougher. You lean into him, unclipping your seatbelt so that you can get as close to him as possible. Your hands drift to the hem of his shirt and tear it over his head in one smooth motion. His body gleams like marble in the moonlight, and you marvel as always at his sculpted lines before you’re kissing once again, hands up behind his head and tangling in the thickness of his hair.

‘Have I told you that I love your hair like this?’ you ask between breathless kisses.

‘I can tell,’ he murmurs, nuzzling your neck with his face as he dashes kisses of his own along the small of your throat. He reaches around you with one hand, pulling you from your seat and into the back of the vehicle.

It feels like an eternity since you’ve experienced each other like this - it’s only a few months, but it’s enough, and you silently vow to never leave it that long again. But it’s different this time - more intense, like there’s a certain animal passion to it. It’s only when you run your nails down Theo’s wide, powerful back and he gasps suddenly that you realise why.

You both look at each other in the darkness, your glowing amber eyes reflected in the windows of the car around you. You hold a hand up to the moon and see that your claws have extended, and running your tongue across your teeth reveals your fangs as well. 

‘Is this okay?’ you ask timidly. ‘We can stop, I’m so sorry.’ You didn’t realise that you’d lost control like this, and you feel embarrassed and self-conscious all at once; but your worries are unfounded as Theo grins wolfishly, his own fangs exposed as he does so. His eyes glow amber too, and he gazes down at you in anticipation.

‘Don’t apologise,’ he tells you simply, and that’s the last either of you says on the matter. You both give up control entirely, letting your bodies do the thinking for a change, letting them figure out what makes them feel the best, and what you can each do to make the other feel the same. 

It’s more intimate than you’ve ever been before, your supernatural sides in sync as your bodies flow and writhe with passion, again, and again, and again.

The world around you may be insane, full of fear creatures and hunters and imminent death, but this night, this moment you’ve managed to snatch back from the insanity, is exactly what both of you needed.

*********

The memory of the previous night will live with you forever, a keepsake locked away in the corner of your mind to revisit in your private moments. You and Theo, together in every single sense of the word.

And right now you’d give anything to be able to relive it, instead of being trapped in the abandoned Beacon Hills Zoo, attempting to divert Monroe and her hunters away from their weapons stash so that Scott and the others can deal a decisive blow to their armory. 

At least you aren’t alone though. Liam is here with you, since this was his idea, and surprisingly, by special request, so is Theo. Not that you would have gone anywhere without him at this point. You’d lost each other too many times before - if there were missions to be completed, you were a package deal. 

Monroe, Gerard, and a relative army of hunters have now arrived and, from your vantage point high above them, the three of you can see that the plan has been successful. You and Theo turn to leave, but Liam doesn’t move, his eyes fixed on Nolan, the events at the high school a few days ago still no doubt playing behind his eyes.

You’re a little puzzled as to why Liam asked for Theo at all though, since he doesn’t seem concerned with listening to anything that he has to add to the plan. 

‘We're supposed to be decoys, not target practice,’ he says, one hand on Liam’s shoulder, but he doesn’t move an inch. He’s standing to attention, like a hunting dog that has sighted its prey and is waiting to pounce.

You still working on that anger?’

‘Liam, come on. We’ve got to keep them guessing, we can’t just stay in one place,’ you add, but he’s as oblivious to you as he is to Theo.

‘I'm fine,’ Liam grunts through gritted teeth.

‘Well, you can be angry at Nolan and stay alive, come on,’ Theo adds, grabbing him by the shoulder once more. Liam shrugs him off, eyes never leaving the frightened teenager below you.

‘Fine, get caught,’ Theo decides with a shrug. He retreats up the stairs away from Liam; you follow reluctantly with one last glance at your fellow beta. He’s been spiralling lately, and it’s not just because of Hayden leaving. He’s having control issues, and being at the zoo is definitely not helping. Of course, Theo kicking his ass probably hadn’t helped the situation either, although Liam had gotten his share of licks in too. Three broken noses in one fight was probably some kind of record - especially for one person; but you expect it’s not a record Theo’s happy to hold.

You’d stayed out of their brawl, letting the two of them work out their aggression and cause a big enough scene to convince Nolan and his ‘friends’ that they’d need back-up. And now the zoo was full of hunters, and Liam’s plan was working. As long as he didn’t screw this up with some Nolan related vendetta.

You couldn’t imagine how he felt - the level of humiliation, the self-control he would have had to exhibit to stop himself from shifting in front of the entire school...you couldn’t even consider it. But he would have to get past it, if he wanted to get through the rest of the day alive. Monroe and Gerard would not fool around if they caught him, or any of you. It’d be a wolfsbane bullet between the eyes, and that’d be the end of you.

You reunite with Theo a few feet away from Liam, and give him a worried look as the pair of you continue to hurry away.

‘He’ll be along in a sec. He just needs a little push. The kid’s hard headed - tough love’s the way to go,’ Theo reassures you. 

‘Are you sure? I don’t want to just leave him back there on his own. What if he does something crazy?’

‘Like causing a scene in a zoo and bringing an army of hunters down on our heads?’ Theo asks sarcastically.

‘Point taken. But still, I’m worried about him. He’s been on edge. Losing control. Hell, he even asked me for help, and I’ve been a werewolf for like a hot minute.’

Theo looks impressed with you, with the fact that Liam thinks so highly of you. ‘He’ll be okay. He’s scrappy.’

You don’t think Theo’s taking this quite as seriously as you - but then again, he’s been back with the pack for all of two days, and he’s missed a lot. Maybe a little perspective would help.

‘Liam feels like we’re all abandoning him. Going off to college, leaving him with a whole town to look after on his own. He’s scared, Theo. And I am too.’

Theo stops finally and puts his hands on your upper arms, looking you dead in the eyes. ‘It’s going to be okay. Liam’s plan will work. He’s come into his own a lot since I’ve met him - he’s been through a lot. Some of the stuff I put him through...’ he says sadly, looking away shamefully for a second as he tails off.

‘That was the old Theo,’ you tell him. ‘You’re not that person anymore. You’re better than that, so much better. You’ve been through a lot too.’

Theo manages a small smile this time, and then refocuses on the Liam problem. ‘Liam will get this under control. He doesn’t want to let you all down - he may not want to be left here alone, but he also wants you all to know he can handle it. That’s clear every time he talks about the rest of the pack - he wants to prove himself to you all, and especially to Scott.’

‘Scott trusts him, he must know that by now,’ you insist, but Theo shakes his head.

‘Sometimes, trusting someone just puts more pressure on them. Makes failure even worse, because you disappoint them as well as yourself.’

‘Do you feel like that?’ you ask. ‘Am I pushing you too hard?’

Theo’s eyes widen, as if he hadn’t even realised the implication of what he’d said, how it applied to him as well as Liam. ‘What? No. No, of course not. You’re helping me; pushing me to be better. I need that. I need you.’

The ache in his voice, as if he’s pleading with the universe to make sure he doesn’t let you down, makes your heart break just a tiny bit. But then Theo points back over your shoulder, and the moment is gone - for now.

‘Look, here he comes now,’ he says. 

You turn quickly and, sure enough, Liam is coming towards you with a gruff look on his face as if the idea of Theo being right causes him physical pain.

Before Liam arrives, Theo shoots you a final question. 

‘How come you didn’t leave? I heard you were just going to go to Beacon Hills U.’

‘I didn’t know what I wanted to do,’ you admit truthfully. ‘I was kind of adrift. And as if I was going to leave without you. Beacon Hills U was good enough, while I waited for you to come back.’

‘What if I never came back?’ he asks gently. ‘You can’t put your entire life on hold because of me.’

You feel corny even giving your next answer, but you’ve known it’s true for so long now that you can’t help yourself. ‘You and the pack, you are my life, Theo. I’m not going anywhere that you can’t come with me.’

‘You dork,’ Theo says dismissively, but you can tell that he’s touched. He’s saved from having to admit any further feelings by Liam arriving grumpily.

‘Come on you two,’ he says, pushing past you and heading off into the labyrinthine tunnels of the zoo. ‘You can distract each other once we’ve finished distracting Monroe.’

‘Oh, now he takes charge,’ Theo replies sarcastically, and you stifle a laugh as you hurry off to follow him.

*********

You were right before - Liam is spiralling, and now it’s getting out of control. He’s going to get you all caught, and then killed. Unfortunately, Theo’s the one that’s reached breaking point first, and now he harshly throws Liam up yet another set of stone stairs to keep him out of Nolan’s line of sight.

‘What's going on with you? This can't just be Nolan. Something around here is triggering you,’ Theo growls as Liam’s eyes blaze yellow.

‘Liam, dude, come on. You need to get it together!’ you whisper-shout, head swiveling around in case Nolan or another hunter arrives.

‘I'm fine,’ Liam repeats, but the more he says it, the more convinced you are that he’s anything but.

‘What is it?’ Theo asks with a shrug. ‘The hunters? You don't like cages, scared of heights?’ 

All this does is rile Liam up even more as he repeats, ‘I said I'm fine!’

‘Guys!’ you shout, but it’s too late. Nolan rounds the corner, crossbow shaking in his nervous grasp and eyes flicking backwards and forwards like a madcap game of Pong.

Before any of you can stop him, he yells at the top of his lungs, ‘They're up here!’ 

Liam is the first to react, his hair-trigger temper spurring him into action as he roars and dives at Nolan. The pair of them topple backwards, over the edge of the platform and down out of sight.

You and Theo rush to the edge, looking down helplessly as Liam and Nolan strike the ground hard beneath you. You have to get down there, right now - before one of them kills the other. And with both of them acting so unpredictably today, all bets are off as to who would be the one left standing.

‘Come on!’ you shout to Theo, and the pair of you are off and running in seconds, pounding down a nearby set of steps as you try to work out which of the winding corridors will lead you towards your fallen friend. Where they had give you an advantage before, it has now been reversed on you - Liam was the one who knew his way around; the two of you are now as lost as the hunters are, and the dead scents of long-forgotten animals are throwing off your ability to track him.

You skid through a doorway and into what must have been an animal pen before, maybe for lions or something. A quick glance around you reveals no other exits, just high walls leading up to a viewing area for zoo-goers.

‘Dead end!’ you cry, and grab Theo’s arm, dragging him backwards.

‘Y’all got the dead part right,’ says a voice from behind you, and then a hail of bullets blasts down between the two of you, scattering you to either side of the pen. 

A hunter stands in the doorway, a dark skinned man in his mid-thirties dressed in camouflage fatigues with a very deadly looking assault rifle held loosely in his hands. The barrel is smoking, and he has a triumphant grin on his face that makes you feel sick.

‘Lookie what I found,’ he says, pointing the gun directly at you. Theo darts in front of you, claws extended and fangs bared. The hunter seems to reconsider, tilting his head to one side.

‘Aww, lookit that. I thought you were wolves, not lovebirds. Maybe I’ll kill you both at once, so you don’t have to stay apart for too long.’ Theo growls low in his throat, and the man continues to grin nastily. 

‘Or maybe I’ll kill you,’ he says to Theo directly, before pointing behind him at you, ‘and let them watch.’

The man squeezes the trigger, and both you and Theo dive to the side again. You roll as you land, covering yourself in orange dust from the sandy ground, and then you’re back on your feet.

‘That’s it, put up a fight! Makes it more fun,’ the hunter taunts. You look to Theo, and you can tell that all he wants to do is jump in front of you again, shield you from harm, make sure that you’re safe even if he’s not.

But that’s not how this relationship works - not anymore. You’ve changed; you’re no longer just a frail and helpless human. You flash your glowing eyes at Theo and curl back your lips, showing him your fangs before flicking your claws out.

‘Together,’ you tell him, and you can see him battling with the idea - he may have said that he wanted to fight alongside you, but actually having to do it? That’s a whole other story. Luckily his indecision doesn’t last long and he nods, smirking around his own fangs.

‘Hey! I’m the one in charge here!’ the hunter shouts, and sprays bullets in your direction once again. But this time you’re moving before he even fires. You leap as high as you can, and the man’s gun follows you in the same arc, bullets trailing behind you, so close you can hear the zip of air as they brush past. 

You land directly in front of the hunter, and he can’t bring his rifle back down in time before you’ve slashed out with your claws, raking across his hands. Blood spurts, and the gun clatters to the floor. You kick it across the pen as the hunter draws a large, serrated hunting knife, a bloodthirsty look in his eyes.

‘Up close and personal suits me just fine,’ he rasps, and you duck as the blade slices out towards you.

That’s when you feel the presence of Theo behind you. Together meant fighting as one - it didn’t necessarily mean attacking at the same time. As you drop to the floor you see him pirouetting through the air, spinning his legs as they scythe towards the hunter, one foot colliding with his chin and the other with his wrist, knocking his blade away and the man himself out cold.

Theo helps you up, strong hand clasping your forearm as he pulls you to your feet. He looks concerned, but you wave him away.

‘I’m fine, don’t worry about me. Teamwork, right?’ You grin proudly, and he manages a smirk of his own. 

‘It’s going to take me a little while to get used to you fighting,’ he admits. ‘It’s not easy, seeing someone you love in danger.’

‘How do you think I’ve felt for the past few years?’ you ask him. ‘Seeing Scott and the others all fighting and having to stand on the sidelines, not being able to help? You understand?’

Theo stops for a second to consider this, and then nods. ‘I think I’ve got an idea. Still, there’s gonna be an...adjustment period.’ He looks down at the unconscious hunter, and flicks out his claws.

‘Theo, what’re you doing?’ you ask warily as he takes a step towards the defenseless man. 

‘He’d kill us, if he was in the same position. He tried to gun us down in cold blood. Why should we be any different?’

‘Because we’re better than that. We’re not murderers,’ you tell him, and you reach out to take him by the arm, hand clamped around the wrist of the clawed hand that’s poised to strike down at the hunter. ‘You’re not a murderer, Theo.’

He clenches his jaw, cheekbones flaring as he struggles with the decision. But then he looks back at you, realisation in his eyes, as his claws retract and his angry expression softens.

‘You’re right. Again. Sorry,’ he ends feebly, but you reach up and kiss him lightly on the cheek.

‘Adjustment period,’ you say, copying him. He smirks again as you kiss him, his expression shifting under your lips. 

Then you remember what you’d been so intent on doing before you were waylaid by the hunter, and your eyes widen in shock.

‘Theo, Liam!’ you remind him, and then you’re both off running again, climbing over the unconscious hunter and back into the corridors of the zoo. Fear and anger waft out from one of the rooms you zoom past, and the sound of Nolan’s voice reaches your ears too - you’ve found them, hopefully just in time.

‘She wants me to kill you,’ Nolan is saying shakily, his crossbow raised at Liam, who is breathing heavily with rage. ‘She’ll kill me if I don’t.’ 

His finger goes to squeeze the trigger, and you and Theo aren’t going to be fast enough to stop him - the weapon is pointed right at Liam’s heart, the bolt is going to fire, he’s going to - 

But Liam roars, and Nolan blinks. It’s barely milliseconds, but he’s distracted long enough for Liam to plough right into him and slam him up against a nearby wall. Liam raises a fist, ready to crush it into Nolan’s terrified face.

‘We’ve got to stop him!’ you whisper to Theo, but you’re both paralyzed in astonishment as Liam punches the wall to the left of Nolan’s head instead of Nolan himself. Again and again he does it, until his hand is bleeding profusely and his voice is hoarse from roaring. Nolan cowers before him, the crossbow all but forgotten, and his eyes screwed tightly shut.

You can only watch as Liam pauses, his hand drawn back for another blow. Only this time, his fingers unfold, revealing his claws, poised and ready to strike. At that range, there’s no way he wouldn’t kill Nolan if his next attack landed.

‘Theo!’ you shout, but he’s already moving. As he runs towards Liam, he grabs a rock from the floor and raises it above his head. He slides to a halt behind Liam, bringing the rock down across the back of his head. He’ll have a headache when he wakes up, and probably want to murder Theo even more than usual, but he at least won’t have become a murderer. There’s an uncomfortable amount of that going around today.

Speaking of which, Theo then turns his attention to the petrified Nolan. The rock drops from his hand with a clatter, and the wannabe hunter appears as if he’s going to wet himself as Theo looks him dead in the eyes, head slightly tilted for effect, and growls, ‘Run.’

Nolan does exactly that, pushing past Theo and Liam towards you, still by the doorway of the room. He slows as he nears you, not sure what side you fall on, whether you’re going to attack him or not.

You flash your fangs at him, and take a deep breath before howling right in his face. You’re still unaccustomed to hearing the noise coming from your own body, but it certainly does the trick. After what he’s done to your friends, especially to Liam, it’s the least he deserves. Nolan retreats even faster, dropping his crossbow in his hurry to get away.

Theo crosses the room towards you wordlessly, and you take each other in your arms, holding each other close. You probably don’t have time for this; there are still hunters around here, not to mention Monroe and Gerard, but you’d saved Liam, both from Nolan and himself. That was a victory, and you could enjoy that, just for a moment.

Of course, that’s when Liam roars back to life and pounces towards Theo, who punches straight armed into the little beta’s face, knocking him flat out once again.

‘He’s not going to be happy when he wakes up,’ you observe as Theo reaches down and throws Liam’s prone body over his shoulder almost effortlessly.

‘Probably not,’ Theo agrees, ‘but then I can keep knocking him out until he changes his mind.’

‘Let’s get out of here,’ you tell him. ‘Scott and the others should have done what they needed to do by now.’ 

Theo nods, and the pair of you sneak away from the zoo as quietly as you can, leaving the murderous hunters behind.

*********

Theo looks over at the sleeping Liam, crumpled into the passenger seat of the truck. He’s out cold, but naturally this time, not because of Theo’s repeated punches to the head. He had been right - Liam had eventually woken up less angry, and a little heart to heart with Theo of all people was enough to help him realise that the Anuk-Ite had been messing with him even more than everyone else. Maybe because he was more vulnerable, or maybe because he already had trouble controlling his stronger emotional impulses; whatever the reason, he knew he had to be more careful in the future.

He’d drifted off into an uneasy sleep as Theo continued to drive, and now you lean forward, resting your head on the back of Theo’s seat to whisper into his ear quietly, letting your friend sleep.

‘We make a pretty good team, right?’ you ask him, and you can see Theo smirking in the rear view mirror.

‘Yeah, we did. It’s been a long time since I’ve fought side by side with someone else. It was nice, knowing you had my back. Even if it was terrifying, seeing you in danger like that.’

‘Please. We fought Ghost Riders together. One little hunter didn’t stand a chance,’ you boast, hamming it up so that Theo chuckles under his breath.

‘Still. Let’s try and keep the fighting to a minimum, okay?’ Theo asks, hands tight around the steering wheel.

‘I’d like that,’ you tell him. ‘But something tells me that we’re going to have to fight a lot more before this is all over.’

‘I think you’re right. It doesn’t mean I have to like it.’

‘Nor do I.’ You sigh, and look from Theo to Liam and back. ‘I’m proud of you today, you know?’

‘What for? I didn’t do anything,’ Theo says, confused.

‘You didn’t kill that hunter, or Nolan. You didn’t leave Liam behind, and you didn’t give up.’

‘Oh. Yeah, that.’ Theo snorts dismissively, but you persist; this is important. He has to understand how much you think of him, how well he’s doing. 

‘I mean it, Theo. Those are big things. You were tempted, but you didn’t do any of what your first instincts told you. You want to put yourself down, to pretend that you haven’t changed, but you have. You’re better than you think you are. You wanna know what I think?’

‘What?’ 

‘I think you’re doing a Liam,’ you tell him matter-of-factly.

‘Doing a what?’ Theo asks in a voice full of disbelief.

‘Punishing yourself because you don’t think you deserve to be happy, because you think you’ve done something irredeemable. It’s called doing a Liam, and he’ll beat you up for copyright infringement if you don’t stop it. I’m congratulating you. Take the compliment,’ you explain, completely deadpan, and Theo shakes his head.

‘I was right earlier - you’re a dork.’

‘Yep, and I’m your dork,’ you confirm.

‘And hey, you did pretty good today too,’ he says, changing the subject away from himself. You can see him glowing with the praise though, even if he won’t admit it. ‘You held your own, and if you hadn’t been there, I might not have been able to take down that hunter.’

‘You’re a big, bad, chimera, Theo. You don’t need my help to take down one moron with a gun.’

‘Yeah, maybe, but I preferred having you there.’ He takes one hand off the wheel and reaches it back to cover your own, which is resting on the edge of his chair. You grip it tightly, and Theo flashes you a smile.

‘I do feel like I can contribute more now though,’ you admit. ‘I can fight now, yeah, but I feel like it’s more than that. Like I’m an equal with the rest of the pack. I know they never treated me any differently before, but I really feel like I belong now. Is that stupid?’

‘Nah,’ Theo says firmly. ‘It just means that you made the right choice. You were meant to be a werewolf. You’re becoming who you’re meant to be.’

‘I think that extends to both of us,’ you tell him, and Theo’s smirk turns sad again.

‘Maybe.’

‘Definitely,’ you override him. 

‘Can you two shut up? I’m trying to sleep. Being knocked out five times by some asshole is hard work too,’ Liam mumbles, and you both suppress a laugh as he turns his back to you. You think he’s gone back to sleep when he turns back, nose wrinkled in disgust.

‘Also, your truck smells like sex. Can’t you do it in a bed or something like everyone else? You two are gross.’

This time you can’t help but laugh, and Liam drifts back into unconsciousness to the sound of you and Theo laughing harder than you’ve laughed in what feels like forever. Even amid the madness and the potential death that you’ve been through today, you’re all still human. 

Sort of.

Fear is a powerful thing, you think as you and Theo subside into silence again, letting Liam sleep. It’s driven all of the humans in Beacon Hills to such insane lengths to protect themselves, when really they’re the ones endangering lives, hunting innocent people. And it’s not even their fault; not really. Some of them, like Gerard, are beyond saving. But most of them are just being twisted by fear, and by the fear creature that even now still stalks the town. The Anuk-Ite needs to be stopped, before it drives the whole town over the edge - and soon, before even more people get hurt.

But when you find out what has happened at Scott’s house that night, the terrible tragedy that has befallen the pack, all your sympathy evaporates like an ice cube in a volcano. Maybe they’re not as innocent as you want to believe.


	14. Behind The Eyes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Set during the events of Teen Wolf 06x17: Werewolves Of London

Beacon Hills Memorial Hospital is a place you’re far too familiar with. You’ve been here more times in the past few years than you have in the rest of your life combined - and it’s almost never been for a good reason.

You’ve been here for your friends, when they’ve been hurt in the fight against the supernatural. You’ve been here for yourself, when you were the one with the injuries. And you’ve been here when your enemies had targeted it themselves, and had to defend the building against their attacks.

But in all of the times that you’ve been here however, there’s always been a constant, reassuring presence that made you feel as though, despite the fact that you were in a hospital, everything was going to work out in the end. That was, of course, the calm, smiling, face of Melissa McCall. The mother of your best friend, and one of the strongest women you know.

This time though she’s not here to comfort you, to let you know that everything’s going to be fine, your friends are okay, they’re in the best place with the most capable doctors. No, this time she’s the one laid out on a hospital bed, a victim of the vicious attack on Scott’s house by Monroe and her hunters.

She, Lydia, Mason, and Scott’s father Raphael were all hit by the firestorm of bullets that tore through the front of Scott’s house. When you’d heard the news, you’d flown over here as fast as you could to provide support for your friends and see if there was anything you could do.

But of course, there wasn’t. Their lives were in the hands of the Beacon Hills doctors now, including Liam’s father, so all that was left was for you to sit and worry, and hope that they were going to pull through. And be there for Scott, as best you could.

Scott and Malia are on the opposite side of the room; Scott’s hands are clasped in front of him, almost like a prayer, and Malia leans into him, to calm him with her touch. Her hand rests on top of his own, and he almost absently allows her to slide it inside the cage of his fingers. You smile at them despite the desperate situation; you’ve seen them the last few days, and they’re getting closer than ever. Closer than even they themselves realise.

It’s sweet, you think. Both of the people that they loved the most have left town already, and with Kira and Stiles far away they’ve managed to find solace in each other. It’s still a blossoming romance, neither of them quite sure how to act around the other just yet, but there’s more than just a spark there. They could have something truly special, if they have the chance to let it grow.

Your mind flits back to your own special someone, even now out there trying to find out who was involved in the attack. You wonder if he would be here like this if you were the one on the operating table, or if he’d be out wreaking havoc in a righteous fury instead; you’re not sure which one you would prefer.

You’re silently thankful for the fact that Scott and Malia’s supernatural healing factor had protected them from the bullets. It doesn’t negate the fact that some of your other friends are now fighting for their lives, but at least you’re not here alone.

And you’re also thankful for the fact that, thanks to Scott’s bite, it’ll take a lot more than some bullets to take you down now too.

As you watch, Scott sits up, nodding to Malia as if a weight has been lifted from his shoulders, and with tears gathering at the corners of his eyes; he’s been eavesdropping on his mother’s operation, and something must have finally happened. A doctor appears to collect him, and you breathe a sigh of relief. Melissa’s going to be okay.

That leaves you and Malia alone together, so you scooch across the room to join her. She manages a small smile, and you return it as well as you can, given the circumstances.

‘She’s going to be okay,’ Malia confirms for you. ‘Scott’s mom, she’s okay.’

‘Yeah. That’s great news.’

Malia’s face turns dark for a moment as she contemplates the events of the evening. ‘But she shouldn’t have been in this position in the first place. Monroe and Gerard targeted innocent people. They’re scum, all of them.’

‘You’ll get no argument from me. They don’t care who gets hurt in the crossfire, as long as they get what they want.’ You grit your teeth at the indignity, before turning to Malia again. ‘I’m glad you’re here, you know?’

Malia looks confused; it’s a look you see less and less these days as she continues to acclimatise to human life, but it always brings a smile to your face when you do see it. It’s a childlike confusion, and your smile just makes it worse.

‘What are you talking about?’

You motion your head towards the hospital room where Scott is even now talking to his mother. ‘You’re here for him, I mean. He’s lucky to have you.’

‘You’re here too.’

‘It’s not the same, and you know what I mean.’

It’s Malia who can’t seem to suppress a smile this time as she looks towards the hospital room fondly. ‘Scott and I...it’s new. It’s...weird.’

‘Love is weird,’ you agree. ‘Look at me.’

‘Well yeah, I’ll never understand you. I mean, Theo? Really?’ she asks in disbelief. It’s not hostility anymore - all of your friends have kind of resigned themselves to the fact that you and Theo are an item, and you’re going to stay that way, but it still seems peculiar to most of them, especially after all that Theo has done both to them and for them.

‘Theo’s...not like anyone else I’ve ever met,’ you admit. ‘He’s flawed, and he’s been broken, but he’s doing his best to be better now. He’s been through as much, if not more than the rest of us, and he’s coming through the other side. I know you guys won’t ever trust him, not like I do, but like you said - love is weird.’

‘Still. Theo?’

You laugh at this, and Malia does too. It’s nice to ease the tension after the seriousness and worry that had pervaded your mood before Melissa’s prognosis was confirmed. You’re still laughing when Scott storms past, a man on a mission, and you and Malia both shoot each other concerned looks before pursuing him down the corridor.

‘What do we do?’ Malia asks as you catch up, flanking Scott on either side as you march through the hospital corridors.

‘No more peace summits. No more running. No more half measures.’ Scott’s talking as if he’s run a marathon, the emotional drain that speaking to his mother has put him through evident in his every word. You’re not surprised to hear him talking this way - it’s what you’d been thinking too.

‘What's the plan?’ Malia asks, and Scott gives the only answer he possibly can at this point.

‘We fight back.’

‘I'm good with that plan,’ Malia agrees emphatically.

‘Me too,’ you say, without hesitation. ‘I think it’s the only option we have left.’ You’ve tried to do this the easy way, tried to make peace and save everyone in the process - but it looks like there’s only one language that the hunters speak. Lucky for you, violence is second nature to werewolves. You’ll just have to learn how to speak it a little faster than you’d expected.

‘Gerard? Monroe? The hunters? We take them all on.’ The conviction in Scott’s voice assures you that this really is the only way. He’s ready for a fight - more ready than you’ve ever seen him. And this time, you’re ready to fight too.

‘Then we're gonna need more firepower,’ Malia adds.

‘Not just firepower. We're gonna need an army.’

And the soldiers Scott already has will need to be ready for anything, you think. And that includes you, now. You’re going to be in the thick of this, and you’re going to have to fight. You’ve managed to blag your way through so far, relying on your supernatural abilities to get you out of danger, but you’re going to need a hell of a lot more than luck if you want to survive this.

Which means you’re going to need to know how to fight. And there’s only one person you can think of that you would want to show you how to do that. 

*********

‘If you’re here to convince me to stay and fight again, you don’t need to do that,’ Theo says as you walk through the door to the police deputy training room. You don’t feel comfortable using the high school gym with Monroe still on the prowl, and this is probably the next safest place for self-defence lessons. With the town on high alert after the hunters’ last assault, the room is empty except for you and Theo; exactly how you wanted it.

Theo’s comment takes you aback, however.

'What’d you mean?’

Theo cocks his head at you, like you’re a small animal doing something unexpected. ‘I heard what happened to Scott’s mom, to Lydia, and Mason. I figured when you texted that Scott had finally decided to fight back. But you don’t need to ask me to stay again - I’m all in, I told you that already. If you need me to fight, I’ll fight. It’s about damn time, to be honest. I don’t know why you wanted to meet me here, though.’

You shake your head at him as you cross the room. You’ve dressed in sweatpants and a loose t-shirt, ready for a workout. If anything, it makes Theo look even more confused.

‘I’m not here to ask you to fight, Theo. You said you’d stay, and I believe you. I’m here because I want you to show me how to do it.’

Theo still looks baffled, and it’d almost be adorable if there wasn’t so much time pressure on you.

‘Show you how to do what?’ he asks, and you raise your fists and widen your stance in response.

‘I want you to show me how to fight. I’ve got the claws, and the fangs, but I haven’t got the...tactics, I guess? I want to know where to hit people, how to take them down as quickly and efficiently as I can. If we’re going to fight, and it’s definitely looking like we will, then I want to be able to hold my own.’

‘You took down that hunter at the zoo pretty well,’ he says, but you shake your head again.

‘That wasn’t me. I just distracted him and you did all the heavy lifting. I want to be able to do what you do. Fight like you fight.’

Theo gasps, a hitch in his chest, and then looks away sadly. Immediately you know something’s not right, but you’re not sure what you’ve said to cause the change in Theo’s demeanour. You drop your fighting stance and instead grab him by the hand as he turns from you.

‘Theo? What is it? Did I do something wrong?’

Theo’s expression is clouded, and you’re reminded of the earliest times in your relationship, when he was so difficult to read, when it was impossible to tell whether he was lying or not. He looks down at your hand, grabbing his loosely, and sighs.

‘You don’t want to fight like me.’

Your hand drops involuntarily, and that seems to make him feel worse, as if you’ve physically slapped him across the face.

‘Theo, I don’t understand-’ you begin, but he’s already walking towards the door.

‘This was a bad idea. Ask Malia, or Parrish. He showed Lydia how to fight, he can do the same for you,’ he says dismissively, but you’re in front of him before he can leave, blocking the doorway with your body.

‘I don’t want Malia, or Parrish. I want you.’

‘No, you don’t,’ he says roughly, attempting to push past you. You refuse to budge, and you can see him getting angry now, the hard lines around his mouth and eyes. You’re so confused, you’re not sure what’s come over him. You place both hands in the centre of his chest and shove him as hard as you can across the room. He lands on his back, winded, on one of the safety mats that are dotted around the floor.

You’re not sure if he’s showing off or just being efficient, but he kicks out with his legs and flips himself onto his feet in one motion; you can tell that he’s definitely angry now.

‘Get out of the way!’ he roars, and you think you can see his eyes glowing amber, but it might be a trick of the sunlight which fills the room.

‘Not until you tell me what’s going on!’ you counter, and dive towards him, tackling him around the middle so that you both go down, hard.

‘Get off!’ he yells, and throws you sideways with all his might. You skid across the mat and flick out your claws, not sure what you’re doing any more. Your instincts take over and you leap once again at his retreating back, locking your arms around his neck.

‘Talk to me, Theo! I can’t help if you don’t-’ you try to tell him, but Theo drives back savagely with an elbow, knocking all the air from your lungs as it collides with your stomach. Your grip loosens around his neck and he wrenches your hands apart, spinning within your grasp to face you.

It’s not anger on his face anymore - it’s pure rage. He gnashes his fangs at you as you splutter for breath, and then your throat is constricted even more as he clamps a hand over it, shoving you against the closest wall. His other hand raises, claws extended, ready to land a killing blow.

You can’t breathe. You don’t understand. Is this the end? What’s going on?

'Theo…’ you manage to wheeze, pawing ineffectively at the hand closed over your throat. He seems to realise then what he’s about to do and the rage drains away like air from a punctured tire. His face drops, sorrow replacing anger, and he slowly releases you, hands dropping to his sides.

The moment your feet touch the ground is the first time that you realise Theo had even been holding you off of the floor. He’s turned away from you, shoulders hunched, and you breathe deeply a few times to refill your aching lungs. You massage your throat, and then slowly walk around Theo so that you’re facing him once again.

Shame. That’s the last thing you ever expected to see on Theo’s face, but there it is, clear as day. He’s fighting back tears, and he won’t meet your eyes as you look at him.

'Theo,’ you whisper again, but he won’t look at you, as if he doesn’t deserve to. You reach out and place your hand on his cheek. He resists, but you turn his head towards you, eyes locking on each others as if they were always meant to be there.

‘I’m sorry,’ he chokes. ‘I didn’t...I never wanted you to see that side of me again. Especially not turned on you.’

‘What’s going on?’ you ask him for the final time. ‘Tell me what’s wrong, and we can work it out together.’

Theo takes a deep breath of his own, and blinks away tears that cling to his eyelashes like morning dew.

‘I’m a killer,’ he says flatly. ‘You know that. I’ve killed people. Lots of people. With my own two hands.’ He raises both his hands and looks down at them, like Lady Macbeth, as if they’re still drenched in the blood of his victims.

‘But that’s not you anymore,’ you tell him. ‘We’ve gone through this - you’re better now.’

‘It’s not that easy!’ Theo shouts, and then seems to berate himself again. ‘I’m sorry. I don’t mean to yell. But it’s true. I want to be better. I want to be, for you, for the pack. But I can’t just change at the drop of a hat. People don’t work like that. Especially people like me.’

‘So when I asked you to help me fight...’ you prompt, and he balls his hands into fists as he answers.

‘I thought you were asking me to help you kill people. You wanted to be ‘quick and efficient’. Like I was. Like I am. You don’t just forget how to kill people.’

And now, finally, you understand.

‘That’s not what I wanted at all,’ you tell him. He goes to interrupt, but you silence him with a look. It’s not something you’d be able to do under normal circumstances, but Theo is vulnerable right now, so you can pull it off.

‘I didn’t ask you to help me fight because I thought you’d show me how to kill people. I asked you because I knew you wouldn’t. I know how you feel about the things you’ve done. About the things the Dread Doctors made you do, about the things you did on your own. So I knew if anyone was going to show me how to protect myself, but not cross that line, it’d be you.

‘Taking a life comes easy to some people - like Peter, and even Malia. But you - you regret it. You know what you’re capable of. How easy it is if you’re really trying to do it. So I thought you’d be the best person to show me how without going too far. But if it’s too hard for you, if you’re not comfortable doing it, then I’ll ask Scott, or Parrish. I just want to be able to fight with you guys. I may not be just human anymore, but that doesn’t automatically mean I can survive everything.’

Theo seems to have composed himself a little better, and he moves closer now, placing his hands on your hips and drawing you towards him.

‘I’m so sorry,’ he says again, and this time glances you into silence as you go to protest. ‘I shouldn’t have lost control, and I shouldn’t have taken my insecurities out on you. If you want my help, then of course I’ll help. You’re right - I never want anyone to feel the way I feel when I think about taking a life.’

You rest your head on his chest, listening to the soft, steady rhythm of his heart as it pounds away, the beat of life ringing in your ears. ‘And that’s why I wanted you to be the one to show me. You’re forgiven, by the way. I should have thought more about your feelings, about what you’ve been through, before I came and asked you. So I’m sorry too.’

‘So, let me see what you’ve got,’ Theo laughs slyly, pushing you away gently. ‘I know you’ve got some moves, you just showed me that.’

‘Bring it on, Raeken,’ you taunt, dropping back into your fighting stance and raising your fists.

No fists is the first thing Theo teaches you. He flexes his fingers and his claws spring into place, a devilish look in his eye. You copy him, hands raised awkwardly this time, not sure where to point your claws so that you can hit others and not stab yourself in the eye.

It’s around an hour or two later when, panting heavily, laying flat on your back on one of the training mats, drenched in sweat and still flooded with adrenaline, you hear the buzzing of your phone.

Theo flips himself to his feet the way he did before, and collects your phone from your gym bag, tossing it to you as you sit up.

‘You need to teach me how to do that, too,’ you tell him, and he chuckles.

‘It’s more style than substance,’ he says. ‘That comes once you’ve got the basics down.’

You’re about to retort when your face drops, the text on the front of your phone flashing up. ‘We’ll have to pick this back up another time, Theo,’ you tell him. ‘I’ve gotta go. Scott and Malia need me.’

‘I think we did pretty good today,’ he compliments. ‘You’re a fast learner. Is everything okay?’

‘I have to learn fast - Monroe and Gerard aren’t just going to sit around and wait for us to be ready to fight. And I’m not sure. It looks like Scott’s called his first reinforcement.’

‘Do you want me to come with you?’ he asks, holding out your gym bag for you to collect as you head towards the door.

‘Probably best if you don’t. Last time you saw this guy, you had him chained up in a basement with creepy Dread Doctor stuff shoved in his arm for days. He’s definitely one to hold a grudge.’

Realisation dawns on Theo as your words sink in, and he steps to one side so that you can leave the room. ‘Hey, Deucalion snapped my neck. I’d say we’re even.’

‘I’ll be sure to tell him that when I see him. He always seemed like the understanding type,’ you say, before hurrying out of the door and leaving Theo alone, smirking to himself in the centre of the room.

  *********

Deucalion isn’t going to fight - that much is clear. But he’s not going to just leave you all to be slaughtered, either. He’s fought Gerard before, and that’s an edge that you desperately need. His tactics, and Scott’s ability to inspire everyone around him, could turn the tide against the overwhelming odds.

'You might need to lower your standards for allies,’ Deucalion is saying, and you grin as Scott shrugs, and tells him that he thought he was. The wry smile that Deucalion shoots him back in return seals the deal - these two are going to work together very well.

Deucalion’s display of his pacifistic martial arts and his reasons for no longer wanting to fight have really made an impact on you. He’s definitely not the same person as he was before; maybe he’s been this way for a while. Maybe he was like this when he came back to help Scott before, when you and the chimera pack worked together to capture him for Theo.

The memory gives you an idea, and even as the front door of Scott’s house closes behind Deucalion you’re going after him, despite Malia and Scott’s confused faces.

‘I have to ask him something,’ you babble as you shut the door behind you. You can fill them in later, you can’t waste time now that the thought has entered your mind. This might be the only chance you get to ask the question that you’re now aching to ask the one person who might understand.

Luckily, Deucalion hasn’t gotten far. There’s something funny about seeing someone as powerful and intimidating as he was (is? You’re not sure how you feel about him yet) walking down Scott’s garden path, his long duster coat swishing around dramatically. At the sound of the door closing, he peers back over his shoulder with those piercing eyes.

‘Ah. I was wondering when you were going to pipe up. You didn’t have much to say inside,’ he says in his honeyed voice. A voice that managed to convince not one, but four other alphas to join him in his crusade.

‘Scott and Malia had that all under control,’ you tell him. He waits for you to catch up with him, and then continues to walk away. You keep pace as best you can, trying to look as if you knew what the hell you were doing, when really talking to the alpha was pretty terrifying. But you had to understand, had to find out what you could do…

‘So, I assume you aren’t just here to chaperone me,’ he says sarcastically, but he looks down with an almost tender look.

‘I...I wanted to ask you something. It’s about...Theo. Theo Raeken?’

Deucalion’s eyes flash in recognition. ‘Oh, I remember Theo. He took an unfortunate trip down a hole, if I remember correctly. Horribly self-confident. Neck made an interesting noise when I broke it.’

You pretend you hadn’t heard any of that, because it’s too weird to acknowledge, and continue. ‘First off, I want to...apologise, I guess? For attacking you. For putting you through what Theo did to you. If I hadn’t offered to help the chimeras, they might not have been able to capture you.’

Deucalion actually laughs, deep and low in his throat. ‘Do you really think that you would have been able to capture me if I hadn’t wanted to be captured? You were an impressive little human, but even you couldn’t stand up against me. But I accept your apology. It’s refreshing to hear.’

You gulp. You’d had a feeling that he had only been captured as part of Scott’s plan, but even so, it’s a bit of a knock to your already fragile confidence. Deucalion however inclines his head for you to carry on.

‘So, uh, Theo’s kind of...different, these days. Or he’s trying to be. He’s trying to change. To be better?’

‘I see. And what do you need from me?’

‘Just some advice, if that’s okay? Like you’re giving Scott, about Gerard. I want to know…’

Now that you’re on the spot you can’t seem to find the words, and you dither for a moment. Deucalion makes an impatient noise, a cross between a sigh and a snort. ‘Do get to the point.’

You lick your lips, trying to order your thoughts. Then you close your eyes and blurt, ‘Theo’s working so hard not to be the way he was before. To not kill people, or betray them, or manipulate them. But it’s not easy for him, and I don’t know what I’m supposed to do to help him. I keep telling him how well he’s doing, how proud I am, but I don’t feel like it’s enough. And I know you’ve changed - you were the Demon Wolf, and the leader of the Alpha Pack, and all of that. But now you’re...the way you are now. You’re better. And I thought Theo was too, but it doesn’t seem like he’s through the woods just yet. And I want to know what you went through, so that I can help Theo through it too. Please.’

Deucalion stops, a slight frown on his face. You look up at him feebly, hoping you haven’t offended him, or overstepped. Or worse - driven him away after Scott worked so hard to get his help. But it’s an intrigued frown, not an irritated one.

‘You think I’m ‘better’ now? Like being a murderer is something you recover from?’

‘I...I don’t know. I just want to understand.’

He sighs, then, to your surprise, smiles a very small smile, just the corners of his mouth tilting upwards slightly.

‘The fact that Theo wants to change is half of the battle. But he will grapple with who he was every day for the rest of his life. It’s like...alcoholism, I suppose you could say. The easy way out of a situation would be to be selfish, to hurt others and put himself first. He will want to do that. It will take an enormous amount of willpower to do the opposite. And there’s very little you can do to help him make the choice to be a better man, and very little I can tell you that will help you do so.’

‘But,’ he continues, ‘I will tell you this. The fact that Theo has someone to change for, a reason to be better, will be invaluable. To have someone in his corner, rooting for him, will be more than most people have. Certainly more than I had. More than I have.’

For a moment, all of the sympathy you feel for Theo is transferred to Deucalion. There’s a lot of similarities between the two. Maybe when this is all over, they can sit down and talk to each other, rather than just to you. You get the feeling that it’d be cathartic for both of them.

‘The best advice I can give you is to do what you are doing: be there for him. Tell him when he’s doing well, when he’s making the right choices. But the other side of that is equally as important: don’t abandon him if he slips; and he will slip, make no mistake. Don’t give up on him. And even when he’s at his lowest, when he’s trying to push you away, do not let him. Tell him how much you love him, and how much he means to you.’

You’re taken aback; you weren’t aware that Deucalion knew about your relationship, but it must be evident in your chemo signals, or even just the fact that you’d asked the question in the first place.

And now Deucalion smiles widely, like a proud father. ‘For what it’s worth, I have faith in you. And by extension, in Theo. Compared to me, Theo was an angel. And if I can make this much progress down the road to recovery, then I have every hope that he will be able to do the same, especially with you walking alongside him.’

You feel yourself grinning with gratitude, blinking away a happy tear or two.

‘Thank you. I mean it, that’s exactly what I needed to hear right now,’ you tell him. And then, because you’ve already poured your heart out to the relative stranger once, and one more time won’t make any difference, you tell him something else, too.

‘ I felt so useless, not knowing what to do, just fumbling through and trying to do what I thought was best. Now I have a little more direction. It’s kind of like becoming a werewolf - I’ve found my place in the pack now, more so than ever before. And with what you’ve just told me, I think I can find my place in my relationship, too.’

‘Supernatural suits you, by the way. You’ll make a good werewolf - you remind me of Scott, actually. A big heart, and no fear.’

If you were smiling in gratitude before, now you’re blushing in embarrassment. But you take the compliment silently, just smiling even wider, hoping that conveys how much that sentiment means to you. Scott is everything you aspire to be, as a werewolf, as a person, and to hear someone, especially an observer from outside the pack, say something like that makes you feel as if you’re floating on air.

‘And now, I think I can find my way back home without you, if you don’t mind. Good luck to you, and to Theo. I’m sure I’ll see you both again before this fight is won.’

Without waiting for a goodbye, Deucalion turns on his heel and continues on his way. As you watch him retreat, you call out to him one final time.

‘Hey!’

He stops, turning his entire body back towards you this time as if you finally warrant more of his time than just a shady look over his shoulder, and there’s a quizzical look on his face.

‘Thank you. And, for what it’s worth, I’m rooting for you too. You’re not entirely on your own. Not anymore.’

He doesn’t seem to react, but you swear as he resumes walking away that he’s smiling to himself too.

  *********

‘When you texted, I wasn’t sure what you were talking about,’ you tell Theo as you creep around the edges of the high school building towards the locker rooms. The last thing you need is for Monroe or one of her little minions to see you, so you’re trying to be as stealthy as possible.

‘Liam had an idea, about how to find out who shot up Scott’s house. But I think he’s going to go too far, so I want to make sure he’s okay.’

‘And you needed me because…?’

‘I needed you to make sure that I was okay,’ he says cryptically. But you trust Theo, of course, so you slide through an open door and follow Liam’s scent through the thankfully empty corridors to the boys locker room where, sure enough, you see Gabe fly across the room and crash into the floor, followed by a very angry Liam.

‘Just follow my lead,’ Theo tells you. ‘You might hear some things you don’t like, but trust me, okay?’

You frown, but nod. And if Theo goes too far, whatever he’s planning to do, then that’s why you’re here, you guess.

As you watch, Liam rams Gabe’s head into one of the locker room mirrors, pressing down slowly so that the glass cracks under the force, splintering like spiderwebs. You can hear the anger in his voice, and the impotence - he wasn’t there for Mason, his best friend. This is his way of getting revenge, of feeling in control again.

‘Theo…’ you warn, and he nods quickly.

‘I’m on it, don’t worry.’

‘You think I'm going to kill you?’ Liam is asking Gabe, and both you and Theo position yourselves behind him so that he’ll see you once he looks up into the shattering mirror. ‘You think we're all killers? Maybe we should be.’

He’s not wrong. It seems so easy for these hunters to talk about killing you all, about taking your lives without any remorse - but now that Liam has Gabe at his mercy, the tables have turned and h’s begging for his life.

Considering all that the hunters have done, the hypocrisy is overwhelming; how can they complain that all supernaturals kill innocent people, especially with overwhelming evidence that Scott and the pack have been doing anything but, and then shoot up a house with normal human beings inside?

You know Liam wouldn’t kill him. Not under normal circumstances. But with the Anuk-Ite on the loose, this is anything but normal. Luckily, that’s where Theo comes in.

‘You're really gonna kill him? I mean, I don't care if you do. But, have you thought this through? Any idea where you're gonna dump the body? No one saw you grab him, did they? That could be a problem.’ Theo asks all of this completely nonchalantly, as if he’s asking Liam what kind of take-out he wants for dinner. It’s an...interesting strategy to adopt, you think, but you catch his eye and he just smiles cooly. Trust me, that smile seems to say, so you remain quiet, perched on one of the benches, a silent observer for now.

‘I don't care,’ Liam growls back.

‘I don't care either. But at least let me help. I'm the one with experience here. If we kill him, we'll have to find the witnesses and kill them, too. Which means we're gonna need shovels, some plastic bags, maybe a chainsaw….’

You hear Gabe’s sudden intake of breath; he knows Liam, too. Or at least well enough to know that he most likely won’t kill him, despite all appearances to the contrary. Theo, on the other hand, is an entirely different story. For all he knows, Theo won’t hesitate.

For all you know, Gabe may be right.

Liam however gets what Theo’s laying down. He releases Gabe, who collapses to the floor. Liam looks up at the bloodstained mirror, equal parts horrified and vindicated at what he’d done.

‘You made your point,’ he tells Theo.

‘And you didn't kill him. That's progress.’

‘Why do you keep trying to save me?’ Liam turns his anger from Gabe to Theo now, lashing out at the person who’d just stopped him doing something he’d regret. You want to defend Theo, but this is between the two of them. Theo was right, back at the zoo. Tough love really seems to work on Liam.

‘You think it'll make Scott forget about everything you did and he'll just let you into the pack? Scott's never gonna trust you.’

It’s hard to hear, even if there’s a chance that it’s not true. You’ve spoken to Scott. He’s willing to give Theo a chance, even if Liam’s not. And Theo’s not about to back down, either.

‘You might wanna remember what Scott's goal has been all along - Keep people alive.’

‘That’s what we’re all trying to do,’ you say, finally spotting your chance to contribute. Liam looks from Theo to you and back, and he seems to reluctantly accept that, in his own way, Theo is trying to help.

‘He should try harder,’ says Gabe from the floor. You’re surprised he has the gall to talk, after everything he’s done. Liam whirls on him, and Theo glares down at him with practised hatred. Even you feel yourself turning a disgusted look on the teenager.

‘What are you talking about?

‘You don't know, do you?’ Emboldened by the fact that he has knowledge that Scott and the pack doesn’t have, Gabe props himself up on one elbow, his confidence and cockiness returning. He seems to have forgotten that Liam had him dead to rights only moments ago.

‘Know what?’ Theo asks, but Gabe suddenly seems reluctant to talk. Theo’s not having that, however, and scoops the wannabe-hunter up from the floor, ramming his head back into the mirror. You’re on your feet the second Theo does it, just in case, but it works. As soon as his head strikes the mirror again, Gabe is ready to sing.

‘About the other bodies!’ he whimpers, and Theo turns back to you both, trying to see if either of you know what he’s talking about. When you and Liam both shrug, he pulls Gabe back off of the mirror.

‘Show us,’ he growls, and pushes Gabe ahead of him. You and Liam follow closely as Gabe trips his way through the school corridors towards what you can only assume will be even more death in a town already up to its limit.

You look at the back of Theo’s head as he leads, emotions conflicting like a hurricane within you. He obviously cares about the pack, about Liam - or he wouldn’t have been here at all. He could have just let Liam do whatever he wanted to Gabe, consequences be damned. But no, he came here to help, to make sure Liam didn’t go too far.

The conversation you had with him yourself earlier that day echoes through your mind, about not wanting you to feel the way he does about taking lives. And then Deucalion’s words join them, how you have to be there for Theo, make sure he stays on the right path. It looks like he is, from what you can see. But you also saw the ease with which he spoke about killing, about disposing of the bodies, about dealing with the witnesses. It’s not even second nature to him; it’s just nature. Can someone really unlearn something like that?

And then you feel awful for doubting not only Theo, but yourself. It’s not a case of if Theo can unlearn it, it’s a matter of when, because you’re not going to give up on him. You never have before, even at his darkest points, and you’re definitely not going to do it now, not when redemption is in sight. And besides, maybe having someone who straddles the line between the darkness and the light is exactly what you and the pack need right now. Your enemies are playing dirty - maybe its time you did, too.

  *********

Your next objective is clear. The Anuk-Ite is searching for its other face, and that’s something you absolutely cannot allow to happen. The fear and paranoia that’s ruling the town right now is bad enough, and there’s no way you can let that get any worse.

Thanks to Scott and Malia, as well as Liam, Theo, and you, not to mention Halwyn’s creepy beyond-the-grave message for Lydia, you’re all on the same page. But finding the Anuk-Ite’s other half without being murdered by Monroe and her hunters might be a little more difficult than it already sounds. With Deucalion though, and now Peter on board, Scott’s little army is expanding. You’re gathering allies, and that makes the future look a little brighter.

For tonight though, you’re all heading home to recuperate. There’s nothing else you can do for now, and you’ll formulate a new plan in the morning. Malia and Peter have climbed into Malia’s car for a long overdue father-daughter heart to heart, while Scott has driven Roscoe away, probably to go back to the hospital and see how his mom is doing. Liam has also disappeared, no doubt off to the hospital as well to check in on Mason.

Which leaves you and Theo. You clamber into his still-new truck, and he guns the engine.

‘You did good today,’ you tell him as he pulls out of the parking lot. It sounds feeble, but it’s a start, at least.

‘What’d you mean?’

‘You handled Liam, like you said you would. You didn’t let him kill Gabe, no matter how much he wanted to. And you didn’t kill him yourself, either. Even when Liam was up in your face, you didn’t waver. You really are committed to helping us, aren’t you?’

Theo almost looks embarrassed, but you’re beaming with pride.

‘I have my own...particular skillset, I guess. So I just did what I thought Scott would want me to do, under the circumstances. What you would want me to do. Having you there, it wasn’t just to stop me if I went too far; it was to remind me of what I was doing, why I was doing it at all,’ he admits.

Deucalion’s words resonate within you once again - Theo had someone to change for, a reason to be better. And that reason was you.

‘But it’s more than that. You’re doing it because you want to do it too, right?’ you ask.

‘No,’ Your smile freezes in place.

‘No?’ You hope your voice remains level.

‘No,’ he confirms. ‘What I wanted to do was rip that little scumbag’s arms off and hit him with them. I wanted to march up to Monroe’s office and tear her head off, and then throw it at Gerard’s feet, still dripping.’

You can feel yourself tensing up, the fight or flight instinct in you bubbling to the surface. But Theo wouldn’t hurt you - especially not after what had happened earlier that day. And there’s no anger in his voice. No violence, or sign that he’s going to lash out.

‘Or at least, that was my first thought. But then I looked at you, and at Liam, and I realised, that wasn’t what I wanted to do. Not really. That was what the old Theo would do,’ he continues, and you silently breathe a sigh of relief.

‘And that’s not who I am.’ It’s the first time Theo’s said that, used the present tense. As if he wasn’t just trying to be something, he was that something. Like he’d achieved a goal. Like he’d changed. And he sounds...happy about it, too.

‘I’m not perfect. I’m never going to be perfect. But I think I can try to be. Especially if you’re here with me.’

You reach over, all thoughts of worry or fear banished from your mind as you kiss Theo on the cheek. ‘I know you can, too. I believe in you, Theo. And I’ll be here with you, every step of the way.’


	15. The Strength Of Your Convictions

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Set during the events of Teen Wolf 06x18: Genotype

As you expected, the light of day has revealed the pack’s next course of action - thanks to Malia and the phone she recovered from one of the Anuk-Ite’s victims, you’re all one step closer to tracking down the other half of the fear creature. However, Scott’s idea to split the group and try to track down both halves at once isn’t going down particularly well.

While Malia and Lydia are attempting to revive Halwyn, Liam and Scott are going to try and trace the voice on the other end of the voicemail message. Which leaves you, Theo, and Mason to see if you can find Aaron, the half you all know about. Unfortunately, neither of them is thrilled with the idea.

‘Can we just get this done, so we can go back to ignoring each other?’ Mason is asking, as he drives you all to the closest entrance to the tunnels below the town. Theo’s in the seat next to him, while you occupy the back, looking warily between the two of them. You’re going to be playing peacemaker a lot today, you can already tell.

'Sounds good to me,’ Theo replies. ‘Scott’s nuts if he thinks we’re going to make a good team. You should have just stayed at home.’

Mason rolls his eyes and ignores the comment, pulling the car to the side of the road and getting out without saying anything else. Before Theo can follow, you place a hand on his shoulder. He turns to face you, mild annoyance from his conversation with Mason still crinkling his face into a frown.

‘Hey,’ you begin calmly. ‘Are you going to be okay?’

‘I’m fine,’ he tells you. ‘Mason’s just a jerk. He thinks he’s smarter than the rest of us; it just rubs me the wrong way.’

‘He probably is smarter than the rest of us. Except Lydia, obviously. He knows what he’s doing.’

‘He doesn’t have to be such a patronizing ass while he does it,’ Theo protests.

‘You want to be part of the pack, right?’ you ask him, and Theo is taken off-guard by the question.

‘Y-yeah, of course,’ he stammers.

‘Then you have to accept everyone, the same way you want them to accept you. Do I get along with everyone in the pack all the time? Hell no. But we’re all friends, and we trust each other, flaws and all.’ 

Theo grapples with that, avoiding your gaze as he tries to think of a good retort, but fails. ‘I guess you’re right. I’ll just...try harder. But he just makes me want to punch him.’

Time to pull out the big guns, you think. You hadn’t wanted to resort to this, but it looks like Theo’s not leaving you much choice.

‘You know you tried to kill him once, right? More than once, come to think of it.’

‘What’re you talking about?’

‘You wanted to kill the Beast, take its power for your own. And that would have killed Mason too. Do you think that maybe he hasn’t forgiven you for that? The rest of the pack have all at least tried to come to terms with the fact that you’re still around, and you’re not going anywhere. But Mason? That wound’s probably a lot fresher for him, especially since he wouldn’t be able to defend himself if you decided to come after him again. So a little understanding might be in order.’

‘I hate that you’re talking sense right now,’ Theo admits. ‘I guess I...still have a lot of things to make up for, huh?’

'You’ll get there. This stuff takes time. But I know you - when you start something, you see it through. You’ll do the same thing here, I’m sure.’

‘If you’re here, I can do anything,’ he says. It’d be corny if it wasn’t said with such conviction.

‘As if I’d be anywhere else.’

You give him a reassuring smile and he covers your hand, which is still on his shoulder, with his own, giving it a squeeze. Then the frown returns as Mason calls from the sidewalk, shattering your quiet moment.

‘Hey, supernaturals? Maybe you could use some of that super-strength to help me get this grate off? Or are you going to let me do all the hard work today?’

You and Theo roll your eyes in synch, which makes you both laugh as you clamber out of the car to help Mason yank the sewer grate from the ground, which he’s pulling at as hard as he can to no avail. Theo elbows him out of the way and grabs the heavy concrete with both hands, effortlessly pulling it from the opening and placing it to one side. 

The newly accessible hole gapes up at you all, a dimly lit ladder just visible on the side of the shaft leading down to the tunnels.

‘Here we go again,’ you whisper under your breath as you descend once more into darkness.

*********

You’ve been walking for hours, and none of you have seen any sign of Aaron or the faceless creature that he actually is. All that’s happened is that Theo and Mason’s sniping has reached epic proportions, and the fear in the back of your throat that you’ve been using as a compass is almost gagging you.

It feels like cold hands clasping your throat, squeezing tighter and tighter as the minutes pass, the closer you get to the creature’s hiding spot. You can ignore it, but it’s taking all of your willpower to keep the fear at bay. You can almost hear whispers at the edge of your thoughts, like ghosts muttering incoherently into your ears as you walk through them.

Theo and Mason aren’t helping your concentration, either.

'We should have taken a left back there, I’m sure I felt more scared when I looked that way,’ Mason is insisting, and Theo whirls on him.

‘I’m surprised you can feel anything around your ego!’ he yells, and you step towards the two of them, just in case this latest in a long series of arguments finally reaches fever pitch. As much as Mason would like to think otherwise, Theo would flatten him in any kind of physical fight, even if he wasn’t a chimera.

‘My ego? You really want to talk about ego?’ Mason shouts, ‘You’re so full of it! You tried to kill me! You tried to kill my friends! And I’m just supposed to let you prance around like nothing happened? You want to pretend you’ve changed, like you’re Saint Theo, who saw the light and wants to turn over a new leaf? That’s bull, and you’re insane if you think anyone’ll believe that!’

‘Guys! Now is not the time for this! Mason, lay off!’ you try, but neither of them is paying any attention to you. Theo squares up to Mason, shoulders back, chest out, ready to fight.

‘You wanna go, little man? I’ll show you just how bad I can be,’ Theo threatens. Mason’s face is almost contorted into a snarl, and he raises his mangled baseball bat over his head.

You step between the two of them now, one hand on Theo’s chest and the other raised high to intercept Mason’s bat.

‘Guys! Stop it! You don’t want to fight, it’s the Anuk-Ite making you do this! Can’t you feel the fear? This isn’t you talking!’

Theo shoves past you roughly, and you fall back into the wall of the tunnel, slipping in the water that coats the floors and hitting the ground, hard.

You can’t hold it in anymore. The whispers in your ears are louder now, louder than ever before. You still can’t make out any individual words, but the cacophony is unbearable. The hands around your throat are squeezing even tighter, and every nerve ending in your body is telling you to run, run, run until you don’t feel like this anymore.

Theo and Mason’s shouts join the screams in your ears, and then your own scream cuts across them all. You’ve rammed your hands over your ears without even noticing, and now you’re on your feet, speeding past the pair of them, turning corners and crossing junctions with no direction in mind other than just away. Anywhere but here.

You’ve only been running for a minute or so, but as you turn a corner, you slow. A dark shape has caught your attention, heaped onto the floor like a pile of discarded clothes. You skid to a halt as you approach, the voices in your head all stopping simultaneously. The silence is almost as unnerving as the screaming was. You near the shape cautiously and poke it gently with a foot.

The shape rolls over, and you gasp. It’s Scott. His eyes are lifeless, and there’s a round, ragged hole in his forehead. He’s dead. 

He can’t be dead. He was nowhere near here. This can’t be real, it can’t. You know it can’t. This all just a mistake. A hallucination.

But it feels so real. As real as the ball of terror worming its way down your throat to the pit of your stomach, and that overwhelming feeling of needing to be anywhere else is back.

You’re running again, back the way you came, away from the dead body of your best friend.

The scent from the next corridor hits you like a dump truck. You can’t bring yourself to look, but your feet seem to be working without your permission. The tunnel looks more like an abattoir, bodies all hanging from the ceiling with identical bullet holes in their skulls. 

As you turn to flee, having no desire to see who else is down there, a large metal door rolls shut behind you. You tug at the handle, trying with all of your supernatural strength to yank it back open, but it won’t budge. You have no choice but to walk through the rows of death.

You want to shut your eyes, to flee through the crowd like you would a swarm of gnats, but your eyes aren’t listening to you either, refusing to shut, to even blink, as you step slowly through the bodies. They soon become dry and itchy, but you know that you won’t be able to blink until you’re at the other end of the corridor.

Malia. Lydia. Liam. Mason. Corey. Melissa McCall. Argent. Sheriff Stilinski. Parrish. All of your friends, all of your pack members, hang lifeless, eyes wide like mannequins glaring at you from their chains. All dead. All because you weren’t strong enough. Because you couldn’t save them. Even with all your new power, you couldn’t save them.

People you haven’t seen for years also hang from the ceiling like bodies from a hangman’s tree. Jackson. Ethan. Isaac. Kira. Hayden. Derek. Stiles. All dead. All murdered in the same way, whether they were supernatural or not - one perfect shot to the forehead.

Your fear has turned to deep, bottomless anguish now. Tears wet your cheeks, flowing without end from your still unblinking eyes. Your face trembles, wanting to cry out, to shout, to scream, but all you can do is walk through the murderer’s row to the room at the end. The room you know that you don’t want to enter, that every fibre of your being is telling you to get away from, but that you can’t stop yourself from marching towards.

Because there’s one body that you haven’t seen yet, one that you don’t think you could handle seeing, that your mind would crack in half if it had to see yet again. You’ve lost him so many times already, even once more would be too much.

But then you’re crossing the threshold into the circular room, and there, hanging in a shaft of light like some kind of religious sacrifice, is the dead body of Theo Raeken.

His head hangs limp, the same bullet hole in his forehead as the others, his mouth twisted as if he was going to say something as he died - you don’t know how, but you know it was your name. He died with your name on his lips. 

And now, finally, control of your body returns to you. You collapse forward at Theo’s feet, clawing at him, pawing at his chest, as if your touch can will life back into his body. But it’s all in vain. He’s gone. You failed him. He’s not coming back this time.

Massive, body-shaking sobs erupt from your throat as your emotions tear out of you like ghosts being expelled from within. You drop to the floor, curling into a ball as if you could disappear into yourself, making it all end, all go away.

Time passes. You’re not sure how long. It could be hours, it could be years. Time, like the depth of your sorrow, is immeasurable. 

But then, eventually, you feel a hand on your back. You flinch away from it, terrified of anything from the outside world now. A voice murmurs to you, but you can’t face it - it’s just the voices in your head, they’re just taunting you now, letting you hear a voice that you’ll never be able to hear again…

‘Hey. Hey, come on. Open your eyes. Look at me. It’s okay, I’m here.’

You can’t, you don’t want to, you won’t…

But then there’s a hand on your face, and it feels so warm, so familiar, so comforting, that you just can’t help it. If it’s a phantom, if it’s a fake, then it’s fine. It’s worth the hope, even if it’s just about to get dashed away again.

Your eyes flutter open slowly, and you prepare yourself for even more disappointment. Theo’s face fills your vision, concern and worry in his eyes and his mouth turned down at the corners in sadness. 

'It’s okay, I’m here,’ he repeats, and you know then that he’s real, that he’s not a fear-induced hallucination. You’re folding yourself into his arms before he knows what you’re doing, and he closes those arms around you, confining you in his embrace, a welcome prison.

‘Oh god, Theo, I saw them all. They were all dead,’ you murmur into his chest. ‘Scott, Lydia, Malia, Liam...all of them. And I had to walk through them all, I couldn’t look away, and then I was in here, and you were...you were dead too. You’d all been killed, and it was my fault, I couldn’t save you all. It felt so real, Theo. It felt so real.’

Theo tilts his head down towards you, and you look up at him, blinking away even more tears. He smiles, a warm, welcoming smile, and you can’t help but smile back, choking back more sobs.

'It’s okay. No one’s dead. We’re all still here, I promise. Mason and I saw you run off, and we came after you. It’s only been a few minutes. It was all in your head, none if it was real. It’s just the Anuk-Ite messing with you.’

‘You’re sure?’

‘I’m sure. No one’s dead. Especially not me.’

‘Why does it keep targeting me?’ you ask, not able to keep the despair from your voice. ‘I’ve seen it so many times now, in so many different shapes. Is it because I’m weak? Because I’m the one it can manipulate the easiest?’

Theo looks down at you with a bemused smile on his face, like you’ve said something cute rather than baring your soul to him. 

‘Do you really think that’s why? That you’re the weak one? That’s the furthest thing from the truth. It’s targeting you because you’re the threat.’

‘I don’t think that’s true, Theo.’

‘But it is. You feel your emotions so strongly; not just the fear, but the passion, the determination, the...love. The Anuk-Ite knows that you’re dangerous. It wants to break you, because if it can break you, then it can break the rest of the pack.’

You roll that thought over in your mind, not sure what to think of it just yet. You grip his sweater in your hands, just to check; yep, he’s definitely real. And you still have a job to do, you remember absently. Reluctantly, you push away from him and get back to your feet, dusting yourself down.

‘I hope you’re right, Theo. Okay, I’m good. Let’s keep going.’

‘What?’ Theo asks, concerned and shocked at the same time. ‘No way. You’re going back.’

‘No, I’m not. I’m good now, I swear. I’m not holding you back anymore,’ you tell him firmly, and you give him your best, most determined look. He may have been the one helping you, but he knows that look; there’s no arguing with you now.

‘Alright,’ he concedes. ‘But if something like that happens again, we’re all going back.’

‘It won’t,’ you tell him, and then you both march back out of the empty room, through the empty tunnel, past the opening with no door to be seen, and back to an anxious Mason, who’s hopping from foot to foot. He lets out a sigh of relief as you both approach.

‘Oh thank god. Don’t do that again! Are you okay?’ he splutters, not sure which sentiment to voice first, thankfulness, anger, or concern.

You nod, and try your best to smile at him. ‘I’m fine. Sorry I scared you.’

‘What happened?’ the ever-inquisitive Mason asks, but you dismiss it with a shake of your head.

‘I’ll tell you later. We’ve got something to do, right? That’s more important.’

‘But-’

‘No buts.’ you tell him firmly. ‘And,’ you add, looking from Mason to Theo and back, ‘no more fighting. Got it?’

‘I’m pretty sure that’s an order,’ Theo jokes, smirking at Mason, who looks defeated.

‘No more fighting,’ he agrees, and then the three of you continue deeper into the tunnels, the now-familiar fear playing around the edges of your mind unable to hurt you any further.

You had let it get the better of you for the last time. The Anuk-Ite was just another supernatural creature, and now it had made the mistake of showing you what would happen if you failed. You knew what was at stake, even more so than before, and you weren’t going to let that dark future come to pass - no matter what you had to do to prevent it.

*********

‘These tunnels go on forever, and we've been down here for hours,’ Theo complains, but he’s looking anxiously at you as he does so. You can tell that he’s still concerned for you - he wants to get out of here for your sake as much as his own.

His complaints fall on deaf ears however, as Mason replies, ‘No real news from the last time you said it 20 minutes ago.’

‘I wasn't doubting the plan 20 minutes ago.’

‘Theo…’ you warn, and he shakes his head impatiently.

‘Yeah, I know, no fighting. But I’m not wrong - we’ve been down here for hours, and there’s no sign of Aaron at all.’

Mason also seems to be at his wit’s end with Theo. ‘If you're so concerned, just go. No one's forcing you to stay here.’

‘Yeah, and leave you and our army in charge of my survival? Don't think so,’ Theo shoots right back.

You can feel the tension in the air charging once again, like defibrillator paddles in an operating theatre. But how was the electricity going to release this time?

‘Whatever it takes just to save your own ass, and nobody else's.’ Mason has walked in front of the two of you, but at this point Theo storms ahead, making Mason sit up and take notice of him properly.

‘I'm here, aren't I? Maybe I wanna be in the pack,’ he admits. It’s the first time in a while you’ve heard him say that to anyone but you. The first time since you and he escaped from the hunters. You wonder if Mason realises what a big deal that is - he’s so observant usually, but when it comes to Theo, he has a very large blindspot.

‘Yeah, right. You, you expect me to believe that?’ Mason has stopped now, and he seems to be seething with a sudden anger. His words shake, as does his body. You subtly position yourself between them for the second time today.

‘He’s telling the truth, Mason. Theo does want to be in the pack. Why do you think he’s down here helping us in the first place?’

‘A pack is about trust,’ Mason insists. ‘I mean, the first thing you'd do is figure out a way to kill all of us.’ 

That remark hits a little too close to home for Theo, who turns away in anger. 

‘Mason, honestly. Theo’s different now. He’s not the same person he was before!’ you tell him, for what feels like the millionth time. You’re not angry - just exasperated. You seem to spend all of your time defending Theo, when his actions really should speak for themselves.

‘And it doesn't matter who forgets. I won't.’ From your position between Theo and Mason, you can see Mason’s hand tightening on the end of his baseball bat, still shaking with anger and indignation. ‘I saw Scott's mom. I saw what you did. And as much as I'm terrified of what's down here, I'm way more terrified of turning my back on you.’

‘Mason!’ you shout. ‘That’s not helping! Come on, put the bat down. We’re getting out of here, before you two start saying what you really think.’ You’re trying to make a joke, but it’s not helping. Mason’s grip changes, and you can tell that he’s getting ready to swing the bat.

And behind you, Theo has raised his hand, fingers bent towards his palm like a claw - ready to strike. Mason’s anger gives way to fear, the emotion that you’ve all been feeling far too much of recently, and you can only watch as Theo’s eyes glow amber and he bares his fangs.

‘Theo! No!’ you yell, but he’s moving faster than you can stop him. He barrels into Mason, knocking him to the floor. But as you look back, you see the real reason he tackled the younger boy - Aaron has darted out of the shadows, swinging a metal pipe. It collides with the wall and ruptures a steam pipe, exactly where Mason would have been standing a second before.

Theo had saved Mason’s life.

You’re instantly on high alert, flicking out your claws and activating your own werewolf vision as you peer through the steam that now pervades the entire corridor. Your head is on a pivot, and behind you, you can hear Theo checking to see if Mason is hurt.

‘You okay?’ he asks.

‘Yeah, yeah, I'm fine. Where is he?’

‘I don't know.’

‘Theo, duck!’ you bellow as Aaron appears through the smoke, swinging his pipe as hard as he can manage. At the sound of your voice, Theo is already dropping to the floor. The attack goes wild, striking the wall again, and Theo takes the opportunity to strike for himself, claws raking through Aaron’s shoulder with a triumphant growl.

A growl which is soon drowned out by an otherworldly scream echoing from the other end of the tunnel. Aaron drives back with an elbow, catching Theo by surprise and knocking him to the floor before running off in the direction of the sound.

‘What was that?’ Mason asks, but you have no idea what’s going on. Neither does Theo, by the sound of things.

‘I don't know, but we gotta find him,’ he’s telling Mason as you back yourself up against the nearest wall, ready for another surprise attack. Theo leans down to pull Mason to his feet, saying, ‘All right, get up, I can't leave you.’

Mason is dazed, or maybe the fall from Theo’s tackle hurt him more than he’s letting on, because he can’t seem to get back upright, even with Theo’s assistance.

‘Guys, we can’t stay here. Aaron’s either coming back, or he’s found whatever it is he’s looking for, so we need to move, right now!’

‘Wait, wait, something's happening, we need, we need to figure it out,’ Mason says, but his voice is unfocused, he can’t think straight under these conditions.

‘So figure it out!’ Theo tells him roughly, but Mason can only pant in pain.

What happens next stays with you for a long time after, a horrible memory filled with second-hand humiliation and sadness for the one you love. As you watch, Theo pulls back one of Mason’s sleeves and grips him tightly, skin to skin. It takes you a moment to realise what he’s trying to do, but Mason is a little quicker on the uptake.

‘You can't take pain if you don't care,’ he wheezes, and it’s like he’s punched Theo in the jaw from the shock on his face. It’s almost devastation, as if his whole world has fallen away from under him, and on reflection you can begin to realise why. Everything he’s been trying to do, everything he’s working towards, all of the time he’s spent trying to prove that he’s better, and even his own body is betraying him. 

‘Theo, that’s not true, there’s got to be another explanation,’ you begin, but you sound weak and feeble to your own ears, so god knows what Theo thinks.

He doesn’t get long to contemplate it though, as the sound of approaching footsteps echoes through the tunnels.

‘Guys, I think he’s coming back!’ you shout, and Theo fills the tunnel with his body, standing side by side with you before roaring in defiance, claws extended once again. You can vaguely hear Mason off to the side of you, protesting something, but the blood pounding in your ears drowns him out.

As you expected, Aaron bounds out of the smoke once more, driving Theo back into the wall behind him. You whirl, ready to strike; you’re not sitting on the sidelines again. 

You drive your claws into Aaron’s back, feeling the skin puncture under your fingers as you tear through his clothes, but he doesn’t seem to even notice. Instead, he pulls Theo’s claws towards him, ramming them into his own stomach.

What the hell is he doing?

Theo seems just as shocked as you are, because Aaron kicks out and knocks him to the floor for the second time in as many minutes. He shrugs backwards and you feel your nose pop as his elbow collides with your face. The smell of hot blood hits you hard, and the coppery taste of it fills your mouth as Aaron flees back down the corridor and out of sight.

‘God damn it,’ you whisper, pinching your nose with your fingers while your supernatural healing factor kicks in. Below you, you see Mason pull Theo into a sitting position, and the pair rest their backs against the wall; they look like comrades in arms, celebrating a battle survived.

But is there really a reason to celebrate? 

You sink down to the other side of Theo, so that he’s sandwiched between you and Mason, still panting heavily. You all sit there in silence for a moment, stunned from the fight and not sure what you should do next. 

Mason is the first to break the silence, leaning over to Theo.

‘Hey.’

‘Huh?’

‘Thanks. For saving me. If you hadn’t pushed me out of the way…’ Mason tails off, not sure how to end his sentence. You nudge Theo in the shoulder, an encouraging smile on your face. 

‘Don’t mention it,’ he says reluctantly.

‘Nah, man, I’m sorry. The things I said, they were harsh. You’re trying. I can see it, I just don’t want to admit it.’

‘He’s right, Theo. You did a good thing. You saved Mason’s life.’

‘Yeah. I guess I did.’ He has a small smirk on his face, but it’s not the usual sarcastic one. It’s more like quiet pride, as he realises just what he did, and what it means.

You’re proud too. You didn’t need to encourage Theo to do the right thing; you’re needing to do that less and less. Plus, and probably more importantly, Mason is grateful that Theo saved him. Maybe that’ll be enough to start him on the road to forgiveness that the other members of the pack have already begun walking.

Unfortunately, when Mason’s phone buzzes a while later and tells you all the horrible news, that the Anuk-Ite is now complete and in possession of even more devastating powers, any little victories you might have won here seem inconsequential, smothered under the suffocating blanket of defeat.

*********

You’ve left the tunnels, for what you hope is the final time. Mason is already feeling better, especially since Theo supported him the entire way out of the tunnels. He’d bundled himself into his car and driven away, leaving you both standing on the side of the road. He’d been concerned, for both you and, to both of their surprise, Theo, but you’d insisted. You and Theo needed to talk, and you couldn’t do that properly with Mason around.

'Come on,’ you say, taking Theo’s hand and pulling him away from the now-replaced tunnel grate. ‘The fresh air will do us good after those stuffy tunnels.’

‘How are you feeling?’ Theo asks as you begin to walk. ‘After...what happened? I was worried about Mason, and I nearly forgot about what you went through.’

‘Don’t worry about me, Theo. I’ve seen my fair share of hallucinations. I’m fine, honest,’ you tell him. 

'I know when you’re lying, you know.’ 

Damn. Your heartbeat must have betrayed you.

‘Okay,’ you admit with a sigh, ‘I’m not fine now, that was a lie. But I will be. That...thing showed me everything I’d been fighting against. What would happen if we failed. I’d lose everyone I love. All my friends. You.’

Theo looks over at you tenderly at that, but it’s a tenderness tinged with sadness. ‘Maybe you should be away from me,’ he says, and you’re instantly defensive.

‘What are you talking about? Why would I want to do that?’

‘I screwed up,’ he says. ‘You heard what Liam said to Mason on the phone - The Anuk-Ite’s halves found themselves because I hurt him. Because I tried to take the easy way out and kill Aaron. And now there’s a fear monster that turns people to stone out there. I’ve just made everything worse, because I made the wrong decision. Again.’

‘That’s not true!’ you tell him, and you step in front of Theo so that he stops. He’s avoiding your eyes, but you can hear his heartbeat the same way he could hear yours. He truly believes what he’s saying, and he’s teetering on the edge of despair now that the adrenaline of battle has left his system.

‘Mason was right,’ he insists. ‘I just do whatever’s best for me. I tried to kill Aaron, because I thought it’d keep me safe.’

‘No, Theo. Mason was wrong,’ you tell him calmly, and the conviction in your voice makes him look up, confused.

‘What do you mean?’

‘Mason said that you didn’t care, that you didn’t want to be in the pack, that you were just out for yourself. But you’ve proven the opposite to me more than once. You’ve saved me. You saved Liam at the zoo, and from the Ghost Riders, twice. Hell, just today you saved me and Mason from the Anuk-Ite. You’re not just about yourself. You’re just so down on yourself that you can’t even see when you’re making the right decisions.’

‘No,’ Theo says roughly, and goes to walk away. ‘This is all my fault. I’ve put everyone in danger, again. I can’t do anything right. I couldn’t even take Mason’s pain - because I don’t care. Deep down, it must be true. Otherwise, why couldn’t I help him?’

You dash to Theo’s side, matching pace with him even as he tries to get away from you. His face is filled with anguish, and your heart aches for him. 

‘There are hundreds of reasons why. Maybe it’s because you’re the first chimera. Maybe it’s because you’ve never tried it before, and trying to do it with a fear monster trying to cave your head in stops it from working. I’ve never done it either! It doesn’t mean anything. Just because I said Mason’s smart, doesn’t mean he’s right about everything.’

‘That’s not the point,’ Theo says feebly. You know what he’s doing. What he’s trying to do. He’s trying to push you away, to fall down the spiral of destruction that leads him back to the person he was before. But you’re not letting him do that. Deucalion warned you that this would happen, and he told you what to do when it did.

‘I’m not leaving you, Theo. You’re on the right path. You’re doing the right things. Okay, maybe you made things worse, but you did it with the best of intentions. If you hadn’t attacked the Anuk-Ite, it might have killed Mason. It might have killed me. It might have killed you! Hell, I attacked it too, so if there’s blame for you, there’s blame for me too. But you weren’t just trying to take Aaron out for yourself - you were trying to defend all of us, and that’s nothing to feel bad about. Ever.’

Theo looks over at you with something like...admiration, in his eyes?

‘How do you manage to see the bright side of everything?’ he asks, and you smile with embarrassment.

‘It’s not that,’ you explain. ‘I’ve been on the outside of the pack for a long time. Sure, I’ve been part of the team, but there’s only so much you can do as a human. But it gives you a good vantage point to see how everyone works, how everyone interacts with each other. I’m good at reading people, is what I’m trying to say. And ever since you came back from...the hole, maybe even before then, I can read you like a book.’

‘Like a horror novel,’ he quips sadly, and you give him a disapproving glare.

‘More like The Hero’s Journey,’ you correct him. ‘You’ve come so far, and you can’t even see it. There’s only so many times I can say that before you’ll have to believe it. And the rest of the pack will too.

‘Some of them might not think you want to be in the pack. But you’re showing them that you do. You’re fighting against what could possibly be the end of all supernatural creatures in Beacon Hills, or even the whole world, and you’re doing it side-by-side with them all. If you take a minute and look at where you started, and where you are now, maybe you’ll see the distance between those two points, the journey you’ve been on since then.

‘Maybe if you take just a second, and stop worrying about all the bad things you’ve done, that you’ll see the good you’ve done too. And you’ll realise that it’s not selfishness that motivates you now - it’s love.’

'Maybe,’ he says reluctantly, and he carries on walking, side-by-side with you into the night. 

‘Definitely,’ you reaffirm. ‘And hell, so maybe the Anuk-Ite is even more powerful now. Maybe the hunters are mobilizing. Maybe the only hope we had of stopping all of this died in the hospital today with Halwyn. But that’s not going to stop us. That’s not going to stop me. And, if you’re who I think you are, it’s not going to stop you either.

‘Because I love you, Theo. And I know you’re going to do the right thing, even if you doubt yourself. Maybe one day you’ll realise how good you are, how good you’ve become. But until then, I have enough faith in you for both of us. But it sure would be nice to share that with you.’

The corner of his mouth quirks against his will, and he shakes his head in disbelief. 

‘You always know just what to say.’

You hope that your speech is enough to inspire him, to make him realise what you’ve known all along. Because time is running out, and if you can’t stick to your guns now, then neither you nor Theo may live long enough to see him through to the end of his road to redemption.


	16. Final Confessions

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Set during the events of Teen Wolf 06x19 - Broken Glass

_Hey guys. It’s me. You probably knew that, by the handwriting. Or the fact that there’s no one else in the house missing. Again. I know I’ve put you through a lot these past few years, and I’d like to say I’m sorry for that. But I’m not. I’m not sorry._

_Hopefully this letter will explain why._

_You’ve probably noticed by now that Beacon Hills isn’t the most normal place in the world. There are a ridiculous number of animal attacks and mysterious deaths, and the high school seems like it’s shut more often than it’s open because of some weird murder happening there. And somehow, me and my friends seem to be right in the middle of it all. There’s a good reason for that. For all of it._

_So, here goes. The supernatural is real. All the myths and legends that you’ve heard, all the TV shows about werewolves and monsters and stuff? They're all based in fact._

_My best friend is a werewolf. Scott’s the alpha of our pack. Yeah, our pack. I’ll get to that in a minute. Lydia is a banshee. Malia is a werecoyote. Liam’s a werewolf. Stiles is just Stiles, but that doesn’t make him any less of a member. And together, we’re the first and last line of defense between supernatural threats and our town._

_My boyfriend is a chimera. He’s part werewolf, part werecoyote. I don’t want you to blame Theo for what’s happened to me. What’s going to happen next. All you need to know is that I love him, he loves me, and we’re good for each other. We make each other better. He’s not perfect, and he hasn’t always been the best person, but he’s trying.  
_

_And me? I was human for the longest time. Until last summer, just after graduation. When Theo left. When all my friends started scattering to the wind. That was when I asked Scott to bite me - to make me a werewolf, like him. I was tired of not being able to protect my friends. Of having to be the one that they protected, instead of helping them fight. So now, I can. I’m still human. I’m still me. But now I’m more than that, too._

_Together, we’ve fought other werewolves, dark spirits, werewolf hunters, supernatural scientists, and spectral cowboys that kidnapped memories as well as people. And everytime, we’ve won. We’ve been there in the middle of it all, and we’re good at what we do. That’s the reason I’m not sorry - because without us, without the pack, Beacon Hills would have been infested with evil, and we’re the ones that have saved the day more times than I can count._

_And that’s also the reason why I have to leave now._

_The mood in Beacon Hills has changed a lot recently. People are turning against each other. Fear and paranoia are everywhere. I’m sure you’ve noticed that, too. And now, normal people are taking up arms against the supernatural. They’re scared, and they’re out to kill everyone that’s been trying to protect them. People like my friends. People like me. There’s a war coming, and we need to fight them head-on._

_It’s not their fault though. Not really. There’s a creepy ancient shapeshifter called the Anuk-Ite that feeds on fear, making everyone worse and bringing out their darkest impulses. Turning them against us. And we’re hoping that we can stop it before things get so bad that we can’t salvage them._

_So that’s where I’m going. I’m not coming home until this is finished. I might not come home, even if it does. If I die, I want you to know that I died fighting for what I believe in, for the people I care about, for the ones that I love._

_And I don’t want you to blame them for any of this. My friends and I, we’re on the right side of this. We may be scary if you don’t know us. We may not be the same as everyone else. But we’re fighting to protect everyone, not just each other, and we’re all prepared to go down fighting if we have to._

_I know this all sounds insane. And I can prove it, but I’m hoping that you’ll just accept it all on faith for now, and not come after me. Let me do this, and hopefully I’ll see you on the other side._

You finish re-reading the letter you’ve written to your parents and, satisfied, sign your name and slide it into an envelope. You place it in the centre of your bed and take one last, sad look around your bedroom.

‘You’ll see all this again,’ says Theo, who’s standing by the window, having silently offered moral support while you were writing. ‘We’ll win, and then you can come back home.’

‘I hope you’re right, Theo. But something tells me that, even if I do come home again, nothing’s going to be the same.’

‘Does that have to be a bad thing?’ he asks, and you’re not sure. You really don’t know.

You join him as he slides the window open and then wordlessly slip outside, dropping to the ground soundlessly and disappearing together into the night.

  *********

The air is super-charged with tension the next day as you and Theo pull over to the side of the road, clambering out of his 4x4 and hearing the familiar crunch of leaves and twigs beneath your feet as you step into Beacon Hills woods. Somehow, you know that the end is fast approaching. The situation in town is reaching tipping point, and there isn’t much time left to prepare.

Scott and Malia have taken off somewhere with Deucalion - they’re going to be the ones to face down the Anuk-Ite, whose fearsome new powers allow it to transform anyone who looks into its eyes to stone like a modern day Medusa. You’d feel offended, but honestly you know that you wouldn’t be able to stand against the creature. You’re not very good at fighting normally, let alone fighting blind. Scott and Malia are your best bets to take the creature down.

But even if you’re not fighting that battle, you know you’ll have to fight before this is all over; you’ve told Theo as much before. And now he’s promised to show you some new moves, to help you hone your instincts. And since almost all of Beacon Hills is unsafe to be in right now, you’re back out in the middle of nowhere, hopefully for some peace and quiet, where you can practice without attracting unwanted attention (and potentially homicidal hunters).

‘You know, I hated nature before all this werewolf stuff,’ you tell Theo as you tramp through the woods together, close but not quite touching. ‘You’d never get me out here. All the bugs, and the dirt, and the bugs. Now, it’s like a second home.’

‘I know what you mean. It’s like part of me just wants to be out here all the time. It’s even stronger when I shift entirely. You can feel why Malia got so caught up in it all.’

‘Maybe when this is over, we can go hiking or something. Lose ourselves in the wilderness for a while,’ you suggest. ‘Like a supernatural camping trip.’

‘I don’t mind what we do, as long as we do it together,’ he replies, and you nudge him affectionately with your shoulder.

You come to a small clearing ringed with trees, not unlike the Nemeton’s usual location but without the creepy tree stump in its centre. This is exactly what you were looking for, so you throw down your bag and turn to Theo, claws raised.

‘Okay. Show me what you’ve got.’

‘I think you should worry more about what you’ve got,’ he quips, and then flicks his own claws into position. He cracks his neck, snarling around his fangs, and darts right at you. You sidestep just in time but he’s instantly behind you, claws around your throat, ready to tear.

‘Got you.’

You shrug him off, annoyed that he got the slip on you so easily. You motion with your hand, telling him to come at you again, and he does so. This time you don’t sidestep but drop to the floor and sweep his legs out from under him. He hits the ground hard, and you place a foot lightly on his throat.

‘Got you,’ you mimic.

‘Don’t be over-confident,’ he warns, grabbing your leg and twisting hard so that you fall sideways yourself. You’re flat on your back, and the now-familiar pressure of his claws on your throat resumes.

‘Got you again.’

And so it goes, for hours on end. Theo comes at you, you make a move, and he somehow finds a way to counter it, throwing out lessons as he does so. Don’t let your guard down. Don’t fight facing the sun. Always keep your footing. Don’t be afraid to cheat (this one came after he threw dirt in your eyes when you thought you had him dead to rights). Mostly though, it’s about trusting yourself and your body. The werewolf side of you knows how to survive. You just have to let it do that.

Gradually, you improve. You start to fight for longer before Theo manages to turn the tables. Rarely, you get the drop on him and take control of the fight. Very rarely, you manage to win. The sun moves slowly across the sky as the day wears on, and then it begins to droop low below the tree line.

Theo launches himself from a tree this time, and you hear the displaced air from his descent just in time to slide out of the way. He lands with a crash, and you lash out with a kick which he swiftly blocks, swinging your leg back the other way to overbalance you.

You use your own momentum to spin away from him, kicking off of a nearby tree and back. He catches you mid-leap, but you’re already in motion and he falls over backwards with you on top of him.

You pin his claws at the wrists with your own hands, and dig your knees painfully into his thighs to prevent him twisting beneath you. You lean down towards him, fangs bared towards his neck.

‘Got you,’ you whisper, as your fangs retract and your faux-killing blow becomes a line of kisses along the edge of his neck. You feel him tense beneath you, and when you look up to his face he’s smiling hungrily.

‘That’s an unorthodox tactic,’ he compliments. ‘If I see you kissing hunters to death, I might get jealous.’

‘That’s when you know I’m really desperate.’ You trail your lips back up to his throat, feeling his pulse begin to race at your touch. You grip his wrists even tighter, your knees dropping from his legs so that you’re straddling him instead of pinning him to the floor.

‘I think you won,’ he whispers breathlessly as you make your way along his jawline, teasing his mouth with your own but not letting your lips touch his. He groans in frustration, and feel him squirming beneath your hands, aching to touch you the way you’re touching him.

‘If this is the last day we have together, I don’t want to spend it all fighting,’ you tell him. ‘If this is the last chance we have to do this, then I say we take it.’

You can tell from the heat of Theo’s body that he’s not going to argue with you. You release one of his hands and it’s instantly on your cheek, drawing your face down towards him so that your kisses finally land on his lips like bullets meeting their target at last.

Theo wriggles his way free of your grip, forgetting to retract his claws and tracing them along the tops of your shoulders, sending tingles through your entire body. You’re a lot less gentle, gripping the front of his shirt between your hands and tearing it in half, exposing his torso to the elements.

He looks down in shock for a second, taken aback at your appetite, but then he’s looking up at the sky as your mouth explores the panels of his stomach, his body writhing under your touch and a small, low moan escaping from between his lips.

You drag your fingers along the edges of his body, up and over the width of his back, clamping onto the bulges of his biceps and kissing him as hard as you can as you do so. He’s in heaven, you can tell, and it’s the first time you’ve instigated something like this. You’ve made love before, but it’s always been a mutual exchange, one for the other - this time, it’s you taking control, and you both seem to like it more than you thought you would.

He murmurs your name, like a parched man begging for water, but you silence him with another kiss; this isn’t a time for words. This is a time for actions, for your bodies to say everything that your minds can’t articulate. It’s a time for silence, and a time for the loudest you’ve ever been. You know each other intimately; you can communicate without speaking, without even looking in each other’s eyes.

Eventually, like all good things, it comes to an end. You both fall away from the other, heads in the dirt staring up at the still-darkening sky, fingers trailing over the remnants of your clothes and just enjoying the company of the one you love, the heat radiating off of each other.

‘I’m definitely going to survive this,’ he says matter of factly, and you look at him quizzically.

‘If that’s what I have to look forward to, there’s no way I’m going to die,’ he confirms, and you’re laughing then, out of embarrassment at the compliment, at the fact that you can still laugh with impending doom perhaps hours away.

‘Intense,’ you say in your best Mason voice, and Theo swats you on the arm in response.

‘If I wanted to sleep with Mason, I’d have been punching out Corey all day instead of being out here with you,’ he says playfully.

‘I’ve told you before, I’ll fight for you if I have to. Just because you and Mason are best buds now doesn’t mean you get to ditch me.’

‘I would never,’ he says, and it’s the most sincere thing you’ve ever heard him say. ‘I will never leave you again.’

You hate that his words, which are meant to reassure you, only make you feel more worried. ‘But you have before,’ you whisper sadly. ‘You’ve left me more than once.’

‘Not by choice,’ he insists, and now he’s propped himself up on one elbow to look down at you, a little crease between his eyes as he frowns.

‘No, not by choice. At least, not most of the time. But you did. After the Ghost Riders. After we saved the town, and I thought we were going to be together forever, and then...you left. And I still don’t know why.’ The pain in your voice betrays how bad you feel about the admission - you weren’t aware, at least not consciously, that this had affected you so much.

Theo, to his credit, doesn’t break eye contact with you. You can see he wants to, that he desperately wants to talk about anything but this, but there may not be another chance. You have to know. Even if the answer isn’t what you want to hear.

‘I’m going to ask you again, Theo. I know I said I wouldn’t, but if things go badly, we may never be able to have this conversation. So please, if you can, tell me why you left me. What was so important that you had to leave when we thought we finally had the chance to be happy?’

Theo seems to fortify himself, his cheekbones flaring as he grits his teeth. He finally shrugs the remnants of his shirt off, and scoots across the ground to lean his back against a tree.

You follow closely, leaning your head onto the broad dome of his shoulder as he takes a deep breath and begins to speak.

‘After I came back, I was different. After what I went through in that hole, I knew I had to do something. I couldn’t just be who I was before. And I didn’t want to be. I’d been the Theo that killed other people, that betrayed everyone around him. I’d been the Theo that the Dread Doctors made me. But I didn’t know who the real Theo was. And I had to find out.

‘So, I left. I wanted to find myself, in every sense of the word. And the first thing I thought to do, was to become a real werewolf. I didn’t want to be a chimera anymore.’

You sit up straighter at this, but Theo is avoiding your eyes. It’s painful to reveal all this, you can tell, but you give him your most encouraging look, even if he’s not paying attention to see it.

‘I wasn’t a real werewolf. I wasn’t a real person. I was just some...thing the Dread Doctors made in their lab. My body was theirs. My mind was theirs. And I didn’t think I could move on, become who I wanted to be, until I took myself back from them. Even though they were all dead and gone, what they’d done to me was still there. I was the Dread Doctors’ legacy, and I hated that.’

‘So, what did you do?’ you prompt, as Theo tails off. You can’t believe what you’re hearing, but you’re reserving judgement until he gets to the end of his story. He looks sideways at you, a totally unreadable expression on his face, and then he continues.

‘I went to every alpha I could find near Beacon Hills. I spoke to Satomi, and the Primal leader. I even started looking outside of town, on the edges of the state. But no one would turn me. When I told them my story, what I’d done, who I was, they all threw me out. They said I was…-’

Here, Theo gasps involuntarily, as if the words were catching in his throat and causing him actual physical pain. You grab his hand, squeezing it as tightly as you can, but not saying a word, terrified of what Theo was about to say.

‘They said I was evil.’ He either doesn’t hear your own sharp gasp, or he chooses to ignore it. ‘They said I didn’t deserve saving. That I’d killed Scott McCall, and there was no coming back from that, even if hadn’t stuck.’

'I was running out of options, and I was running out of cash. I didn’t know what else to do. There were so many times I wanted to call Scott, to ask him for help, to ask him to bite me and make me what I’d always wanted to be. But I couldn’t bring myself to do it. And then that night, when I saw those creepy spiders, I was so close. All I had to do was press call, and I knew that Scott would answer, despite everything I’d done. And that’s when the hunters came, and...well, you know the rest.’

Theo is silent then, completely and totally silent. It’s only your enhanced hearing that means you can hear him breathing, shallow and slow, as if the very act of staying alive after his confession is taking up all of his energy.

‘Why...why didn’t you tell me? We could have gone to Scott together - I’m sure if you asked him, he’d have bitten you. Or even if he hadn’t then, he definitely would now. Why did you have to do this all on your own?’ You try not to sound hurt, but you are - Theo didn’t want your help with this, and you have to know why.

He looks down again, ashamed. He closes his eyes before speaking, as if he can’t bear to see your reaction to his next words, and he pulls his hand from your grasp as if he doesn’t deserve to touch you.

‘I didn’t want to tell you. I just felt...dirty, and I didn’t want to burden you with that. I’ve never been worthy of anything - not of being a real werewolf, not of having my own pack. All I’ve been able to have are twisted copies of those things; being a chimera, having a pack of chimeras...After all the things I’d done, all the things I was, I wasn’t worthy of anything good.

‘I wasn’t worthy of you.’

You’ve started crying at some point, silent tears streaking down your cheeks, sorrow not for yourself but for Theo and his poor, broken view of himself.

‘That’s not true,’ you tell him firmly, wiping your eyes with the back of one hand.

‘I knew you’d say that,’ he says dismissively, and turns away to stare out into the woods, off into the distance, back to his troubled past.

‘And I love you even more for saying it. But that doesn’t make me think it any less. I’ve been a horrible person. And yeah, I’m working hard to change that. But as soon as I came back, we were thrown into the fight with the Ghost Riders and I didn’t have a chance to breathe, to really think about anything. So that night, when we’d won, after Douglas and the train and everything, just laying there with you, it all hit me. And I couldn’t deal with it. I couldn’t inflict myself on you while I wasn’t anything like the person you needed me to be.’

You sit up properly now, the tears drying on your cheeks as your sorrow morphs into determination. You fix him with the look, the one that you know he loves, the one that you can now back up with power as well as intention. You sit in silence, waiting for him to look back at you, but he’s lost in his memories now, drowning in his mistakes.

‘Theo.’

Reluctantly, he looks back. His face is like a stormy ocean, a tumult of emotions thrashing about beneath the surface, none of them pleasant.

‘I’m only going to say this once,’ you tell him firmly. ‘And you’re going to listen to me, and you’re going to believe me. Okay?’

Your tone of voice brooks no argument, but Theo still looks as if he might resist all the same. Slowly he nods, and then you begin.

‘I love you. There are many, many reasons why I love you. I love you because you’re dedicated, and passionate, and adventurous. I love you because you’re able to turn any disadvantage to an advantage, and you never give up. I love you because you love with everything you have, and I love you because you learn from your mistakes, and you work as hard as you can to make sure you never repeat them.’

‘Okay,’ is all he says to that. He must be able to tell that you’re not finished. In fact, you haven’t even gotten to the most important part.

‘But I’ll tell you why I don’t love you, too. I don’t love you because you’re strong. I don’t love you because you’re good at fighting, or because you’re not afraid to use your darkness if you need to. And I definitely don’t love you because you’re a chimera.

‘Those aren’t the reasons I love you. Becoming a real werewolf won’t make me love you any more, or any less. I love you for who you are, not who you aren’t. You are who you are, and I will love you no matter what. You never need to feel dirty, or unworthy, with me. Never again. I’ve loved you through everything you’ve been through, whether it was good, bad, or something in between. So chimera, werewolf, or whatever else you want to be, you never need to prove something to me like that.

‘I loved you when you were Theo, the Dread Doctor’s chimera; I’m in love with you now that you’re Theo, fighting to prove his way into a pack; and I’ll be in love with you no matter who you choose to be next.’

Theo has been watching you in silence as you’ve spoken, and now the edges of his mouth quirk up ever so slightly.

‘Do you really feel like that? I don’t think anyone’s ever said anything like that to me before.’

‘With every fibre of my being. We’ve had the conversation about you being a good person more than once, and I’m pretty sure I’ve managed to get that through your stubborn skull by now. So I know I can get through to you with this too. There’s very little you can do to get rid of me, Raeken. I’m not going anywhere.’

Theo’s smile has widened now, and you can see his eyes glistening, as if he’s the one about to cry.

‘Guess we’re stuck with each other then,’ he laughs, and he reaches around you to pull you close. You lean over, your head on his chest, looking up at him as he stares back out into the forest again. But this time, he doesn’t look troubled at all. Perhaps now he’s contemplating the future, rather than the past.

‘Something else we can add to our pile of things to do when this is all over,’ you tell him, and he murmurs curiously. ‘Think about it some more. And if you still want to be a real werewolf, we’ll ask Scott. He did it for Hayden; I’m sure he’ll do it for you too.’

‘He did it for you,’ Theo says absently, and you can hear the trepidation in his voice, as if he wants to say something but doesn’t want to offend. You’d wondered how he’d take you being a werewolf, but he’d seemed to roll with it well enough before. But with his newfound confession about his chimera status, you suddenly realise that maybe it hurt him more than you thought it would.

‘Does it bother you, me being a werewolf? You can tell me, I don’t mind. I know it took you by surprise when I told you before.’

Theo doesn’t look down, but tilts his head to one side in contemplation. ‘I guess...it did. Everything I said before was true, about you being in danger, and that we can fight together now, and all that stuff. But I guess, maybe subconsciously, it did make me feel worse. I could kind of delude myself when I was the only supernatural out of the two of us, but when you became who you are now, it just put things in sharper perspective, made all my flaws stand out even more. Especially since you seemed to take to it so easily.

‘But after what you just said, I’m happy again. I’m more than just a chimera. I’m the person you picked, out of everyone, to love. When you’re surrounded by so many good people, so many people that would be easy to love, like Scott, or Lydia, the fact that you picked me...it really means a lot.’

‘I think we both picked each other,’ you reassure him, nuzzling down further and finding his hand again, sliding your fingers between his where they fit perfectly, as if they’re where they’re meant to be. ‘To think that you saw me, back when I was nothing-’

‘You were never nothing,’ he interrupts, and you smile to let him know that you hear him.

‘-Okay, not nothing, but comparatively nothing, especially with all my friends so close by.’

‘You always stood out, even back then. How fiercely protective you were, how strongly you felt about the things that you did. And you had powers of your own, even if you didn’t know it. You said before that you’ve never taken pain,’ Theo explains, ‘but I don’t think that’s true.’

‘What do you mean? I’ve definitely never done it before. Pretty sure that I’d remember if I had.’

‘Maybe not physical pain,’ Theo clarifies, ‘but you’ve taken mine more than once. I told someone once that real pain is emotional pain. I was telling him out of spite, so he could use that to hurt someone, but that doesn’t make it any less true. And you can take my emotional pain; you’ve been able to do that even before Scott bit you. You’ve helped me through so much. Without you, I don’t know if I’d be anywhere near where I am now. I might have just left town after the Ghost Riders. Or I might have done something even more drastic when the Beast was around, and gotten myself killed.’

‘I wouldn’t have let that happen.’

‘I know. And that’s exactly what I mean.’

You both sit in silence for a while, listening to the sounds of the woods, the sound of each other’s heartbeat, the slow and steady breathing of a couple that seem to have no worries in the world. The war, the Anuk-Ite, all of it seems inconsequential for a little while at least; for now, you are together, and for the first time ever, you feel like you’re both on level footing. Neither Theo’s insecurities nor your own are upsetting the balance - you’re both in a good place, individually, and together. All of your worries and fears are out in the open, and you feel as if you can take on the world. Which you might just have to.

But not yet. Not quite yet.

  *********

Phone calls always seem to ruin your perfect moments. This time, both you and Theo get one at the same time, and neither of you can help but roll your eyes.

‘I guess it was too much to ask for this to last forever,’ you tell him sadly, collecting some of your discarded clothes and pulling your phone from your bag as Theo does the same behind you. His naked body in the dim light is beautiful, and you have to drag your eyes away from him to look at your caller ID.

‘Lydia?’

‘Thank god, I’ve been calling people for hours! It’s happening, it’s now!’ You’ve heard Lydia panicked before but this is beyond that, veering towards hysteria. To hear this from someone usually so controlled frightens you more than any hunters ever could.

'What? What’s going on? What’s now?’

'Monroe’s making her move! I’ve seen it - no one’s going to survive this if we don’t do something right now!’

‘Lydia, you have to slow down, what did you see? What’s going to happen?’ You’re trying to speak calmly, but it’s difficult, as if Lydia’s panic is seeping through your phone and into your own body.

‘I saw...I saw...everyone’s going to die. It was like some grotesque sculpture garden. Everyone was a statue, everyone. Scott, Malia, Liam, even people who aren’t even in Beacon Hills right now, like Jackson, and Derek. The Anuk-Ite’s going to get to them all, and they’re all going to die. I’m with Peter, and we’re going to met Scott and Malia as quick as we can. I’ll text you the address, you have to find us as fast as you can!’

‘Lydia...you said everyone. Did you see Theo? And me? Are we going...to die?’

Lydia is silent for a moment, the sound of her rapid breathing the only thing you can hear. She must be running to her car, you think absently.

‘You don’t need to hear the specifics,’ she says, but you know that's not going to stop you asking, and so does she, but that doesn't stop her from trying to deter you regardless.

‘Lydia. Tell me what you saw. What happens to us?’

You hear a sharp intake of breath, and a dim voice in the background saying, ‘Just tell them so that they start moving already!’, which must have been Peter, tactful as always.

‘I saw you both. You were stone, like the others.’ Lydia’s voice is monotone, like the heart monitor of a corpse. ‘Side by side, trying to protect each other. But it didn’t helped. The Anuk-Ite got to you both. There, are you happy now?’

‘Yeah.’ You feel like this news should have shocked you more, but all you feel instead is a deathly calm. ‘Text me the address, and I’ll get Theo and meet you there.’

‘Hurry!’ Lydia says, and then the phone goes dead. A second later, a text message pings through with her location, as she’d promised.

Theo taps you on the shoulder, jeans and boots now back on. His shirt was in tatters thanks to your eagerness earlier, so he’s opted for no shirt at all until he gets back to his truck. You’d find it distracting, if you weren’t so worried now.

‘Liam’s at the hospital. He thinks something bad is about to go down,’ he informs you. ‘What did Lydia say?’

‘She wants us to go meet her at some shipping yard somewhere. She’s with Peter, and they’re going to get Scott, Malia, and Deucalion. She thinks the fight’s about to begin.’

‘Was that all she said? You were on the phone for a while.’

You already know that you’re not going to tell Theo the whole truth, and you know he’ll know too; your heartbeat will betray you. But you don’t have time to argue. You can’t tell him what Lydia told you - that it’s all going to be futile, that you’re all going to die.

But you know that you go down fighting. You know that you go down together. And if you’re going to go down, then you can’t think of any other way you’d want to go. And you definitely don’t want to argue about it before it happens. So instead you just flash Theo a sad smile, collect the rest of your clothes from the floor of the woods, and head back in the direction of the road.

It was nice while it lasted, you think, as you pull some spare clothes from the truck and toss Theo a new sweater. If this was going to be your last night, you’d spent it exactly how you’d wanted to; with the man you loved. And now you were going to go into battle, possibly for the last time, with him at your side.

You wanted to think that you were ready to die. That you were happy to go down fighting, and in service of what you believed in. But in truth, you weren’t ready. It wasn’t fair. You had spent so long trying to work out who you were, where you fit. Theo had spent so long fighting against himself, trying to become the person he wanted to be. And now you were both so close to your goals and life wanted to take it all away from you. You’d spent all this time on your journey, and now you weren’t going to get to enjoy the destination.

And your friends had gone through just as much. Scott had lost so much, had been through unbearable hardship, and yet he was still the kindest person you had ever met. Lydia, poor, tortured Lydia, had suffered more than all of you, and yet you’d never met a fiercer friend. Malia, now finally adjusting to her human life again, ready to experience the world and all it had to offer, wasn’t going to get that chance. And Liam, still so young and naive and being forced to grow up so quickly, to not have a proper childhood, was never going to get to breathe easy again.

It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t right. Who were Monroe and Gerard to take all this away from you? Who were they to try and kill your friends, to target them for being different, when all you wanted to do was protect people? What gave them the right to decide that?

And then there was the Anuk-Ite, that had picked your town for its sustenance. This absurd creature, this obsolete thing from the dawn of time that fed on chaos and paranoia. Who decided that it got to be the apex predator, and that it got to feed on your friends?

No. No more. You’d had enough. You weren’t going to take any more of this. You all had too much to live for.

You look sideways to Theo, hands gripping the wheel, rakish smile on his face as if he was about to take you on vacation and not towards a potentially fatal final battle, and return his smile as best you can, your mind now made up.

One way or another this was going to be decided within the next few hours, and you were going to do your best to make sure that your friends, your boyfriend, everyone you cared about, got to see the sunrise again. Even if it meant you didn’t.

Because what better way to show you love someone, than by giving your life for theirs?


	17. Raeken's Redemption

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Set during the events of Teen Wolf 06x20 - The Wolves Of War

The moon has risen overhead, heralding the final night of the war. For better or worse, this was all going to end tonight. On the one hand, salvation. On the other, a world in which everyone lived in fear, and the Anuk-Ite grew fat on their terror. And the only things that stand in the way of the darkest outcome are you and your friends.

So no pressure then.

You wring your hands nervously, glancing at Theo in the driver’s seat. He’s drumming his own fingers on the steering wheel, going as fast as he can back towards Beacon Hills without risking a crash. You couldn’t help your friends if you were wrapped around a tree, after all. He’s pulled a beanie onto his head, having run his hands through his hair so many times already that you’ve insisted he wear it to help him calm down.

‘Relax. We’ll get there in time. They’re not going to start without us,’ he says as he realises you’re staring at him, but you can tell straight away that he doesn’t believe that. His eyes dart backwards and forwards across the dimly lit road in front of you, as if enemies might jump out from anywhere at any time. Which, considering the way Beacon Hills is at the moment, is a genuine concern.

You reach over to him, wanting solace in his touch, and wanting to offer him some of his own. He drops a hand from the steering wheel without even thinking about it, and squeezes yours tight. It helps, at least a little, and you drive along together in silence for a while.

‘Theo…’ you begin, but he shakes his head knowingly.

‘I know what you’re about to say. You’re going to give some big speech about how you want me to know you love me, just in case you get killed. But I don’t want to hear it. I know how you feel. And you know how I feel, how grateful I am for you and how much you’ve helped me change. So let’s just drive, okay? Because I don’t want to hear a goodbye. If I don’t hear it, it means we don’t get to leave each other.’

You can kind of see the logic behind that. It’s a little naive, but it’s sweet too. You can use something light to cling onto in this overwhelming darkness, so you just nod, gripping his hand even tighter. Beacon Hills proper is coming up fast now, and the adrenaline in your blood is building. It’s nearly time. Your heart is roaring in your ears, and you can hear Theo’s doing the same, feel his pulse quicken through your contact.

You’re so on edge that when Theo’s phone rings, you both almost jump out of your seats. 

‘Jesus,’ Theo swears, reaching over and flicking the screen sideways. Scott’s voice instantly comes out of it, not waiting for a hello. There’s no time for that, not tonight.

‘Guys, I know you’re both there.’

‘Scott!’ you call, as if you need to yell across the great distance between you and not just into the phone. It’s out of relief, you realise - after Lydia’s frantic phone call, you weren’t sure when you were going to hear any of your friends voices again, if at all. ‘What happened? We’re on our way!’

'It’s okay, we’re all okay. We got a little last minute back-up. I need you to listen to me, alright?’

‘What do you need, Scott? What can we do?’ This is Theo, cutting across your next exclamation.

‘Gerard’s split us all up. All of our friends are in danger, and there aren’t enough of us around to get to them all. Malia and I are going to the school - it’s empty now, and if the Anuk-Ite wants us we can at least fight it somewhere where no one else is going to get hurt. The Sheriff’s going after Parrish, and my dad. Lydia’s going with Stiles to rescue Jackson-’

‘Wait, Stiles? Jackson? When did they turn up?’ you ask, but realise that there’s no time for explanations, not if your friends are in danger.

‘-I’ll fill you in later. But I need you and Theo to get to the hospital. Liam’s walking into a trap, and I think my mom’s in danger too. You don’t have to fight for long - if we can stop the Anuk-Ite, we can stop all of this before it gets worse. Just buy us more time. Wherever Liam and the others are, get them out of there.’

'Am I buying you time to come up with a plan or to get help?’ Theo asks, gritting his teeth.

‘Both.’

‘You can count on us, Scott. Be careful,’ you tell him. You want to give him a speech too, just like you’d wanted to give Theo. But again, there’s no time. And like Theo said, if you don’t say goodbye, then you’ll get to see each other again.

‘You too.’

Theo swipes the phone back the other way, ending the call. He slams his foot down hard on the gas, and his truck shoots off at even higher speeds. 

‘Whoa! Slow down, Theo! We’ll get there, but it’d be better if we got there in one piece, right?’

Theo looks sideways at you, frustration on his face. But he’s not frustrated with you - he’s frustrated with the whole hopeless situation that you’ve found yourselves in. And who can blame him?

‘I just feel like Scott’s sidelining us. I know we don’t stand a chance against the Anuk-Ite, but I want to go after Gerard, or Monroe. If we can take them down, their army should fall apart, even if Scott can’t stop it.’

There’s a certain sense to what Theo’s saying. But there’s also a side of the argument that he’s not seeing; one that only comes from being in a pack for as long as you have, from having the kind of faith in Scott that you have.

‘We have to do what Scott tells us, Theo. I know how you feel - I’m used to being put in the safe position, not having to fight on the front line. But he’s given us a job that he wouldn’t give to anyone he didn’t trust completely.’

‘What are you talking about? Babysitting Liam?’

You smile at that, at the fact that Theo’s animosity towards Liam can surface even at a moment like this. ‘No. Scott wants us to protect the closest thing he has to a son. He wants us to protect his mom. Do you really think he’d ask us to do that if he wasn’t a hundred percent certain we could do the job?’

The realisation of how much faith Scott had placed in him takes Theo aback. He blinks, puzzled for a second, and eases his foot off of the gas pedal. You’re still going obscenely fast, but at least you can read the road signs now rather than just seeing coloured blurs go past your window.

‘That’s...I don’t know how that makes me feel,’ he admits.

'Glad. Proud. Determined. Petrified. Pick one, I have lots of emotions to spare. Or, lets just go save our friends, and then we can think about how we feel about it once they’re safe.’

‘You’re right. We’ve got a job to do. I’m not going to let Scott down.’

You manage a small smile externally, but hope blossoms in your chest at that. Theo’s finally getting it. A pack is about trust; trust in your alpha, in each other. This could be the last trial by fire he needs to truly impress upon your friends that he deserves a place among them.

But that, like your feelings, is a problem for later. Right now, you know what’s next. Theo swerves down a dark street towards Beacon Hills Memorial, a look of grim determination on his face as he does so. That’s what you need too - focus. You look up at the rear view mirror, and see afamiliar look on your face. No one hurts your friends while you’re around. And now all of your friends are in danger, so it’s time to get to work.

*********

You’ve never seen Beacon Hills Memorial so quiet before, and you’ve been here at literally every time of day, from first thing in the morning to the middle of the night. But the building is deathly quiet. There are familiar vans pulled up outside the building, the hunters that filled them no doubt now swarming the building like cockroaches. Cockroaches with automatic weapons.

You and Theo slide out of his truck as silently as you can manage, but even the quiet sound of your sneakers hitting the forecourt seems amplified in the eerie silence. You make your way towards the front door of the building, passing the vans as you do so, their black shapes looming out of the darkness like treacherous rocks on a choppy ocean. As you pass close to one, you get a mischievous idea. Theo looks back, confused, but you place a finger over your lips and flick out your claws.

You move from van to van, stabbing your claws as hard as you can into the rubber of each of the tires. Air hisses out like an angry spirit and the vans drop toward the floor. They’re not going anywhere fast now.

‘In case we have to make a quick getaway,’ you explain in a hushed voice as Theo raises an eyebrow at you. He nods his approval, surprised at your cunning. You’ve learned from the best, you think. 

The main door of the hospital is sealed tight, a metal chain tied around the bars both inside and out. How the hunters expected that to help, you’re not sure, as Theo reaches over and yanks the outer padlock off in one swift motion. The chain drops to the floor like a coiled up snake, and you kick it to one side so that no one falls over it in their haste to escape.

Theo pulls the doors open, the chain on the inside stretching as he does so. He indicates it with a flick of his head, and you reach around him to mirror his movements, ripping the padlock from the chain. The doors swing open, now released from their confines, and you both step cautiously into the hospital, which is just as silent as the exterior was.

‘I don’t like this,’ you whisper. ‘Something’s going on. They planned this.’

Theo creeps ahead of you, sneaking past the reception desk to the entrance hall, looking around from side to side.

You make your way to the desk itself, leaping over the counter as silently as you can. Catching sight of the security monitors that you had been looking for, you gasp sharply and Theo is instantly by your side.

‘What? What is it?’ he asks, but all you can do is point. 

On one of the monitors, showing one of the higher floors of the hospital, is a literal firing squad. Gabe and a small force of hunters, all equipped with automatic weapons, have filled the screen, aiming at...you can’t see properly, who is that?

Not that it matters, of course. Whoever it is, they needed help. You’re about to move towards the elevators when the shape on the screen moves into focus, and you’re gasping again. 

It’s Liam. The sight of your friend, one of the people Scott has sent you here to protect, in the crosshairs of so many hunters makes your blood boil, and your throat constrict as both anger and despair threaten to grip you at once.

‘Theo, come on!’ you shout, but he’s already moving, side by side with you as you slam your hand on the call button for the closest elevator. It opens agonizingly slowly, and then begins to crawl upwards to the floor where you saw the horrible scene unfolding. 

You hope that you’re going to be in time. You desperately try and formulate a plan, but all you can think about is bursting out of the elevator and roaring at the hunters in defiance. Have elevators always been this slow? You strain your ears, hoping that the next sound you hear isn’t gunshots. Or a body hitting the floor.

‘Get ready,’ Theo says, and you just have time to wonder whether he has a plan either when the doors announce that they’re about to open with a comical ping. 

For once, you’ve been gifted with some good luck. As the doors retract, the only thing you can see is Liam’s back. He’s right outside the elevator, ready to be rescued. And just beyond him are the hunters, a group of adults all flanking Gabe, who holds a rifle nearly as large as himself against his shoulder.

‘Theo!’ you shout again, and he’s read your mind, dashing out of the elevator cabin and grabbing Liam around the shoulders, pulling the little beta bodily backwards towards relative safety. 

No sooner does Theo appear than the hunters open fire, bullets slicing through the air towards both of them. You’re slamming the door close button as soon as Theo moves, pressed up against the wall of the elevator and out of reach of the deadly hailstorm.

The two of them careen into the elevator with a crash, flattened against the opposite wall in a mirror of your own position. The metal doors slide across, bullets ricocheting off of them and the back of the elevator cabin itself until they have come to a complete close. 

‘What are you doing here?’ Liam splutters, and Theo, as relieved as you are to have managed to rescue him safely, pulls his beanie from his head, sweat dripping from the tips of his hair. 

‘Was just asking myself the same thing,’ he says, and you roll your eyes at the pair of them.

‘Guys, we need a plan,’ you tell them. ‘We can’t just leave, we have to take them down. But the second those doors open, they’re going to open fire again.’

‘Maybe they’ve moved on? They might have gone to look for someone else to shoot in cold blood instead,’ Liam wonders, placing his head against the bullet-ridden door. 

‘Somehow, I don’t think our luck’s that good,’ you disparage.

Liam holds up a hand for quiet as he concentrates, trying to hear distinct heartbeats over your own pounding in your chest, and the multitude of other sounds that no doubt filled the hospital beyond most people’s normal range of hearing. 

‘Still out there?’ Theo asks, as Liam pulls back from the doors, a slight nod and the grim look on his face telling the whole story.

‘Look, I’m not dying for you,’ Theo tells him definitively. 

Liam barely even seems to register what Theo has said before he’s responding, ‘I’m not dying for you either.’ Theo looks down, not sad, not even angry. It’s almost like acceptance, and that makes your heart break a little, even despite yourself. Theo’s tried so hard to prove himself, and even now, with death literally outside, Liam can’t seem to accept him.

You’re trying to think of a way to mediate, to get the pair of them on the same side, when Liam looks towards the elevator door and speaks again, a little more resigned this time. Or maybe it’s not resignation - it’s more like begrudging admiration.

‘But I will fight with you,’ he says. 

‘And don’t count me out either,’ you pipe up, flicking your claws out again in preparation. ‘I know I’m new at this, but I’ve been...practising.’ You glance over at Theo, and he smiles at you in approval.

‘If we’re going to die, I can’t think of many people I’d rather go down fighting with,’ Liam admits. 

‘No one has to die if we do this right,’ you tell them both, and they share a reluctant look with each other. The odds are stacked against you all. But then again, you knew that not coming back was a distinct possibility. And if you were going to die, then so be it. You’d fight as long and as hard as you had to, to ensure that your friends got to see the sunrise. You’d already made yourself that promise, and you weren’t about to back down.

‘You guys remember the last time we were all here together?’ you ask, suddenly remembering. ‘With the Ghost Riders?’

‘I remember someone throwing us both across the room so that he could do some stupid heroic sacrifice thing,’ Liam says sarcastically, and Theo smirks for the first time that evening. 

‘Hey, it worked, didn’t it?’

‘None of that today,’ you warn him. ‘I told you earlier, I’ve lost you too many times. I’m not going to do it again. Not here. Not today. Not ever.’ Optimism in the face of almost certain death was a healthy response, right?

Theo glows under your praise, his smirk transforming back into a smile. Liam looks at him peculiarly, as if he’s never seen Theo smile properly before. Which, you think, might actually be the case.

‘Or you, Liam,’ you whirl on him, and he looks sheepish, like the teenager he is for a fleeting second. Then he’s all business once more, and he nods seriously.

‘We can do this. For Scott. For our friends.’ That’s the best inspiring speech you’ve got in you right now. 

‘Okay,’ Theo sighs, and his eyes begin to glow. He looks to Liam, and to you, and the pair of you copy him, eyes glowing bright yellow. 

Were you two betas and an omega now, you wonder, or were you three betas together? And then, you realise that it doesn’t matter. You’re three friends, and you’re ready to fight for your lives.

‘Let’s fight.’

You reluctantly release the door close button. The elevator dings, and the door of destiny slides open for the final time, the three of you roaring in unison and glaring down your foes.

Liam and Theo are instantly away, taking opposite sides of the corridor and leaping from the walls in some impressive acrobatic displays of werewolf battle skills. You’re just about to pound down the hall after them when a glint of metal catches your eye to one side.

In the corridor that runs along in front of the elevators rather than straight away, a group of hunters waits. You immediately realise what their plan was - if you all headed down the corridor towards Gabe and his forces, then they could circle around and box you in, trapping you between two sets of deadly weapons and mowing you down to their hearts’ content.

But you’d seen them. You could stop them. Five hunters, staggered along the corridor, all with ridiculously huge guns, all pointed at you. You glance back down the hall towards Liam and Theo, tearing through the hunters as if they were mannequins in a clothing store and not deadly fighters in their own right, and make your choice. 

Those two could handle themselves for now. You had to make sure they weren’t about to get a bullet in the back.

You snarl, lips making unfamiliar shapes around your fangs as you face off against your foes. Their self-assured expressions droop, just slightly. It’s one thing to feel confident about killing supernatural creatures when you’ve never been face to face with them, and quite another to actually do the deed. The sight of you in full battle fury visibly shakes their confidence.

Good.

The five of them raise their weapons, and you copy Liam and Theo, running down the corridor as fast as you can, kicking off of one of the walls and descending from above, more like a bat than a wolf.

The first man barely gets his gun up before you’re on top of him, slamming your fist into his face and swatting his gun aside. He hits the wall of the corridor hard, gun dropping from his hand as he falls unconscious to the floor. One down. Maybe this’ll be easy.

Then the bullets start to fly, and you begin to regret your initial assessment.

The lessons that Theo has been drilling into you fly to the fore of your mind unbidden, and the wolf within you growls hungrily. It knows what to do. It knows how to win this fight. Together, you can do this.

The next two hunters pepper the air with bullets, but you drop to the floor, your momentum letting you slide along the linoleum between them. Your legs scythe out as you pass, and the two of them fall like trees under a lumberjack’s axe, colliding with each other as they do so. You reach up and grab their throats, now within grasping distance, and crash their heads together, putting them out of the fight for good.

That leaves two.

As you’re about to attack, a searing pain, like a red hot poker under your skin, burns through your shoulder, and the sound of gunshots reaches your ears from somewhere else on the floor. Somehow, someway, you know that Theo’s been hurt. It’s not life-threatening, but he’s taken a bullet. 

You push the thought to one side. If you couldn’t stay focused and finish your task, then Theo might be taking a lot more than just one bullet. You just hope that he and Liam are okay, that they can hold out for now until you can get to them.

You’re back on your feet again, but the delay has given the remaining hunters time to reassess you as a foe. One of them has opted for the Argent approach - dual handguns, but aimed sideways like a gangbanger in a bad movie, while the other, sensing that if you’d gotten to the end of the corridor without being shot that bullets probably weren’t the best way to go, has discarded his rifle in favour of a military grade machete. It was usually used for slicing through underbrush in jungle areas, you vaguely remember Argent telling you, but it’d cut through your limbs with just as much ease and, no matter how strong your supernatural healing factor is, you don’t think it’ll regrow anything that gets sliced off.

You bare your fangs and flash your claws, letting them know that you mean business. The handgun guy fires, bullets exploding from his weapons in a rhythmic beat, like a typewriter that only spells death. 

You dart to the side, grabbing a hospital gurney that’s sticking out of a doorway and fling it down the corridor at the man, who can’t move in time and takes it full in the gut, doubling over the metal trolley. A quick blow to the back of his neck knocks him out too, and you’re almost satisfied when the whistle of a blade slicing the air reaches your ears.

A sharp pain lances up your arm as you dodge, and you look back to see that there’s now a small chunk of your arm missing, and blood dripping down the man’s weapon. He grins sinisterly, and you give him your most disgusted look.

He advances once again, blade flashing, and you dodge side to side, backwards, trying to keep away from him and his deadly weapon. Blood soaks your arm, and the wolf within you howls in both pain and anger. 

You clamp your hand across your wound, feeling the blood pooling between your fingers as the wound begins to close. The hunter glares even more, his voice a rasping growl as he taunts you.

‘A wounded animal doesn’t last long. Come here, let me finish you off. Your friends’ll join you soon enough, if they’re not already dead.’

You want to taunt him back, but instead you fling your hand, the one that had been on your wounded arm, towards him. Blood spatters across his face, right into his eyes, and he instantly raises his hand to try and clear his vision - which is exactly the opening you need. You grab his wrist, the one holding the knife, and squeeze as hard as you can, bones shattering beneath your touch.

The man screams, which gives you a sick sense of pleasure, and the machete drops to the floor. As he kneels over, whether from the pain or to try and recover the blade you’re not sure, you drive your knee upwards into his nose with a pop. He’s out for the count now, and you’re victorious.

You take a second to survey the corridor, bodies dropped left and right, and feel a strange sense of pride. It’s a shame no one was there to see you do that. To see you win your first real supernatural fight. Or so you think.

‘Oh my god, that was amazing,’ says a voice, and you whip around to see Melissa McCall and, of all people, Nolan coming towards you. Scott’s mom looks very impressed, and dangerous in her own right with her stun baton fully extended and ready to use. You’d never know she was laid up in the hospital only days before.

Nolan looks...for the first time, clear-headed. You want to feel angry at him for what he’s done to your friends recently, but it’s not his fault, you know deep down. The Anuk-Ite has been playing with his head, just like everyone else, and if he’s finally come over to the right side then you can give him the benefit of the doubt.

‘Thanks?’ you say, suddenly embarrassed, but she waves you away.

‘No time for that. Where’s everyone else? Where’s Scott?’

‘Everyone’s scattered; there’s fighting all over. Scott’s trying to stop this at the source. Liam and Theo are back there. Can you go check on them, please? I’m going to circle around and see if there’s anyone left on this floor, then we can meet up and decide what to do next.’

She nods without another word and heads off back towards the elevator, Nolan trailing behind her with an astonished look on his face as he passes you. You try to give him an encouraging smile, but then remember that your fangs are still in place so it probably looks like you want to eat him. Either way, he retreats even faster after Melissa.

You loop around the corridors, checking for any hunters that haven’t already converged on Liam and Theo. You know the rough layout of the hospital floors, and soon enough you manage to find yourself back in the main hall, a totally different scene than you expected to see playing out in front of you.

Gabe is leaning up against a medicine cabinet, blood on his lips and bullet holes perforating his torso. He’s dying, you can tell that even from here. His heartbeat is irregular, and slowing fast, and all he can seem to say is, ‘It hurts…’ over and over. You feel awful - this isn’t his fault. None of it was. 

Across the hall are Melissa, Nolan, and Liam. As you watch, Corey and Mason appear too; they must have been here somewhere, fighting their own battle. They’re all okay, or at least alive, and that’s the very best you can hope for at this point. And in the middle of the room, walking slowly towards Gabe, is Theo.

He looks down at the fallen hunter (no, the wounded teenager), his hand falling from his own wounded shoulder. No one is talking; you can barely hear anything except Gabe’s laboured breathing, as Theo kneels down in front of him.

Gingerly he reaches out and takes one of Gabe’s arms, pulling it gently away from his chest and taking his wrist in both hands. You realise what Theo is doing just as it begins to work, and dark veins etch their way from Gabe’s skin into Theo’s, running up both of his arms as Theo finally manages to take someone’s pain. 

Gabe’s breathing quickens as the pain leaves his body, and you can see the gratitude on his face as he stares up at what was only a few moments ago his enemy. 

‘Does it hurt any more?’ Theo asks, and Gabe slowly shakes his head.

‘No…’

‘Good.’ Gabe blinks a few more times before his eyes finally close. His head lulls to one side, and his hand goes limp in Theo’s own. You hear his heartbeat slowing even further, until finally, it just doesn’t beat any more. He’s gone.

You can’t believe what you’re seeing. The pride and anguish in your chest threaten to burst outwards, and there are tears in your eyes as you watch. Tears for Theo, for what he’s managed to accomplish, and tears for Gabe, for having become a casualty of this senseless war.

And then you’re not crying anymore, you’re running, because you’ve seen something that chills your veins with ice.

A small red dot has appeared on Theo’s forehead, and you know what that means. The only thing that it could mean. It means your entire world is about to end, and you can’t accept that. You’ll never accept that. Not again.

As you run, the world slows to a crawl. You turn your head, following the sight of the beam, and see the hunter that everyone must have missed, a laser sighted rifle pointed at Theo, his finger slowly squeezing the trigger.

Even with your supernatural speed, you’re not going to make it. You’re not going to be able to get Theo out of the firing line, and he hasn’t noticed the hunter himself yet. He’s going to get shot. 

He’s going to die. He’s going to die. He’s going to die!

Unless you do something insane.

You change course, no longer running towards Theo. Instead, you intercept the bullet’s path and dive as hard and as far as you can. As you’re falling, you see the look of shock on the hunter’s face as his bullet punctures your chest instead of finding its target.

The pain is instantly unbelievable. Your chest feels as if someone has set a fire inside it, and you hit the floor hard, crumpling where you land like a ragdoll. You look down absently, and see blood blossoming over your t-shirt like a Rorschach test. Whatever the bullet is made of, it hasn’t come out the other side. It’s like an uncomfortable presence in your chest, like a fist gripping your heart and constricting even tighter with every breath. 

The ceiling of the hospital begins to blur, and your eyelids feel heavy, like they’re made of lead; you know that if you shut your eyes, you won’t open them again. But you’re so tired. You’ve fought so hard, not just today, but for the past few years, since all this supernatural stuff started. Surely you can rest now. You’ve done your part. This is it…

And then the hospital ceiling is gone, replaced by the face of Theo Raeken, concern and anger and sorrow plastered across it in equal measure. You’ve never seen such raw emotions, even when you’ve been alone together. 

‘No! No, stay with me, don’t you dare leave me!’ he shouts, taking you into his arms, sinking to the floor with you on his lap. The usual safety you feel in his arms, the pressure of his grip on you feels alien, like it’s happening to someone else instead of you.

You smile up at him. He’s not hurt. He’s alive. You saved him. 

He’s crying now, tears dripping freely from his face down to yours, but you can’t feel them either. You can’t feel much now, except the burning pain in your chest and the death march of your heartbeat slowing down, like Gabe’s only seconds before.

‘Hey,’ you manage, trying to raise one hand up to touch Theo’s face, but your arms are about as heavy as your eyelids. ‘Hey. Don’t cry. It’s okay. I’m okay. It’ll be okay.’

‘No! No, hang on, we’ll get help. Someone, please, do something!’

You can hear movement around him, Liam, Mason, Corey, Nolan, and Melissa darting in and out of your field of vision, but they’re not important right now. It’s Theo you need to see. Theo, the last thing you want to see before you die.

‘Kiss me, Theo. Kiss me one last time,’ you whisper, and he sobs, chest heaving.

‘No, no, please, don’t go!’

‘Please, Theo. Just once more.’ You’re calmer than you thought you’d be. You’re not crying. You’re not even angry. You know that you’ve done the right thing. You kept him alive. You saved him. And hopefully, if Scott has managed to stop Monroe and the Anuk-Ite, all of your friends would be safe too.

Theo’s lip quavers, but he doesn’t argue any further. Instead, he leans down towards you and fits his mouth to yours. For all of your lack of feeling, you feel that. It’s like an electric shock through your body, one final jolt of life. And with it, the pain begins to lessen. Your chest no longer feels like it’s filled with fire, and as you open your eyes you see dark veins coursing across Theo’s lips. He’s taken your pain.

Even in these, your final moments, he’s looking out for you.

‘You wouldn’t let me say it earlier,’ you breathe. ‘But I love you, Theo. I love you so much. I’m so glad I met you.’ Even now your voice is getting weaker, and everything feels so, so heavy. You force your eyes open, an imploring look on your face as you gaze at Theo, trying to memorize every inch of him, every line, since it’ll be the last thing you ever see.

‘Promise me,’ you wheeze, even though every word is agony. ‘Promise me that you won’t...go back to who you were. That you’ll be good. For us. For yourself.’

‘I promise, I promise, but please, don’t go, I can’t do this without you, please!’ he cries, beautiful even in his sorrow.

‘I love you, Theo,’ you tell him one final time. Your eyelids finally win their inevitable battle with your willpower, and close. Everything is black, and getting blacker.

And then, all of your troubles, all of your pain, all of your worries, fall away. The faces of your loved ones dance around the insides of your eyes, your parents, your friends, your pack. They’re smiling down at you, and they’re safe, and they’re happy, and they’re so full of life. 

The last thing you hear is the voice of the one you love the most, the one you love with your entire heart, your entire body, your entire soul. Theo Raeken, the first chimera, your first love, your only love. And he whispers the last words you’ll ever hear:

‘I love you.’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To be concluded!


	18. A Pack Of Two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Set during the events of Teen Wolf 06x20 - The Wolves of War

‘I love you.’

The words echo around your subconscious, growing in strength with each reverberation until they build to a mighty crescendo, so loud that you can’t escape them any more. You’ve been trying to hide in the darkness, as far down as you can go, but the sound just won’t let you sleep. 

Sleep? No. It’s not time for sleep yet, part of you thinks. There’s still so much to do. Still so much life to live. 

But then there’s another part that says you’re done. You saved the people you cared about. This is your reward. You get to rest. You don’t have to fight anymore.

‘I love you.’

You know that voice. You know it like you know your own, could pick it out of a crowd even without supernatural hearing. It’s the voice of...whose voice is it? It’s scratching at the edge of your mind, you’re fighting to put a name to it, but your brain can’t seem to focus properly. It’s too dark, too loud.

You want to hear that voice again. There are so many things you want to see, and do, and be. And you can’t do any of that if you sit alone in the darkness. If that means you have to fight again, then so be it, you realise. You don’t want to rest. You want to see your friends. You want to see...

‘I love you.’

Your eyes snap open with a start, and you breathe as deeply as you ever have, as if you’ve been at the bottom of the ocean and you’re just now breaking the surface for air. You take a few more laboured breaths, one hand on your chest trying to centre yourself, and someone else’s on your shoulder.

Slowly, your breathing returns to normal. The sound of your heart dims, no longer rattling in your ears. You can focus now on the person standing in front of you. It’s not who you were looking for, but they’re almost as welcome.

‘Hey, kiddo. You’re okay, it’s okay. Just breathe, lay back. You’re okay,’ Melissa McCall reassures you. You look around, trying to ascertain what had happened and where you are.

Your shirt has been discarded. You’re on a hospital bed, and a small steel trolley next to it holds nine very familiar looking green concoctions. There’s also an even smaller tray, upon which is perched a pair of silver forceps and a tiny chunk of distorted metal.

‘You got the bullet out?’ you manage to wheeze, finally succumbing to the pressure of Melissa’s hand on your shoulder as she forces you back onto the pillow behind you. It’s uncomfortably warm, as if you’d been sweating in your sleep, but you can’t bring yourself to move again just yet.

‘Just in time. I don’t know what that hunter was thinking, firing silver bullets. You’re just lucky it didn’t shatter, or we might have had another Halwyn situation going on.’

‘And then...you…’

Talking is still difficult, and there’s a pain in your chest that you hadn’t been aware of until just now, all of your energy focused on breathing before. You put your hand over your heart, a small nodule of scar tissue blemishing the skin. You didn’t think werewolves got scars. Instead of trying to speak again, you just point at the bottles on the trolley.

Melissa follows your eyeline and nods. ‘Yeah. Those nine herbs are a damn powerful thing, but even I wasn’t sure whether they’d be able to bring you back. You were nearly...gone. I was not looking forward to telling Scott.’

‘How long have I been out?’ you wonder, slowly croaking out the words, and Melissa glances down at her watch.

‘Couple hours. You healed a lot quicker than we thought, too. You werewolves continually surprise me.’

A couple of hours? It’s not that long but, given what’s been going on, every second is pivotal right now - you could have missed so much. A hundred questions flood your mind, but you settle for the four most important ones, forcing the words out despite the pain in your chest. ‘Did we win? Is everyone okay? Where’s Scott? Where’s Theo?’

Melissa smiles sadly, and you’re instantly paranoid. Surely something bad hadn’t happened. You were all doing so well before! But she doesn’t elaborate, instead dodging the question.

'It’s fine. It’s all okay. But I think there’s someone here who can tell you more about it; I had to get Liam to physically throw him out while I was operating, but as soon as I said he could come back, he’s been here. He’d just fallen asleep before I came in.’

Melissa steps aside, and you see a small, cramped-looking hospital issue chair shoved against the wall behind her, previously obscured from view. The smell of the hospital chemicals and the slow, rhythmic beat of his sleeping heart rate meant that you hadn’t noticed him before, but folded up in the chair, not a care in the world on his gently snoring face, is Theo.

‘Do you want me to wake him?’ Melissa asks, but you shake your head. 

‘I’ll do it.’ Melissa turns to go, but you reach out and grab her hand. ‘Thank you, Mrs McCall. You saved me. I’ll never be able to thank you enough for that.’

She smiles her motherly smile and waves your thanks away. ‘It’s what I do. You guys have saved us plenty of times, I think we can call it even for now.’

And with that she leaves, shutting the door to the room behind her with a quiet click. 

You roll over onto your side, the pain in your chest already beginning to fade. Melissa was right - werewolf healing was a miraculous thing. In an hour or so, you’ll probably be back on your feet. But for now, you gaze sideways at Theo, crumpled into the chair like an action figure being forced to play house. Obscurely, you notice that his shirt is still stained with blood. Your blood.

They say that your true face is revealed when you sleep; all the worries of the day slip away, and who you really are seeps through. Theo looks like the teenager he is; there are no frown lines on his forehead, no smirk on his face. He looks innocent, and vulnerable, and adorable. The little line of drool seeping out of the corner of his mouth doesn’t help, you think with a small smile, but hey, nobody’s perfect.

You lay there for a while, not really paying attention to the time, just staring at Theo, focusing on your breathing, until the pain in your chest ebbs away entirely. You rub your hand over the skin, and even the scar tissue seems to have faded, just a little. A battle wound you’re proud to wear, you think, because it helped keep Theo alive.

You’re pretty sure that if that silver bullet had hit Theo’s brain, he wouldn’t have been as lucky as you were. The nine herbs and werewolf healing could do a lot of things, but there was no coming back from that.

Finally, you swing your legs over the edge of the bed. You hit the floor quietly, the chill of the linoleum tiles seeping through your sneakers, and creep over to the chair where Theo still sleeps. 

You almost don’t want to wake him, but your burning curiosity about the outcome of the battle has finally gotten the better of you. You reach over and shake him lightly, his head lolling forward as you do so.

‘Theo. Theo, wake up. It’s me.’

Theo awakens with a start, head swiveling backwards and forwards, your name the first thing out of his mouth. When he sees you he’s instantly taken aback, and then you’re being enveloped in the tightest hug you’ve ever experienced in your life.

Theo’s arms squeeze your hard-earned air out of your lungs, and he buries his head into your bare chest; you feel the dampness of tears on your skin as he does so, but when he finally relinquishes his hold and looks up at you, his eyes are dry.

‘Why did you do that? You could have died! I thought we said no heroic sacrifices!’ he yells, but relief outweighs the accusation in his voice.

‘I said I wasn’t going to lose you,’ you remind him. ‘I couldn’t live without you. I’d already done it before, and I couldn’t do it again. I was going to try and push you out of the way, but I wasn’t going to make it in time - the only thing I could do was...what I did.’

‘You’re so...so…’ Theo’s lost for words, and he’s shaking his head in disbelief, but you’re happy with that. You’re happy that he’s showing any emotion, able to do anything at all, because he’s alive, he’s here, he’s with you. ‘...so stupid!’ he finishes lamely, and you’re laughing, and he’s laughing, and you hug him back this time, as hard and as close as he did to you.

‘Am I forgiven?’ you ask him, your words muffled against his back. He nods, hair tickling your face as his head moves, and you both break away to look at each other.

‘Just promise me you’ll never do that again,’ he says seriously, but you can’t. You shake your head.

‘I’m not going to do that, Theo. I’ll always be there for you. That’s what love is. So, unless you don’t love me anymore, you’re stuck with me. Do you not love me anymore?’ you ask, knowing full well what the answer is.

‘Shut up and let me show you how much,’ he says, and kisses you abruptly. It’s slow and passionate, his tongue brushing across your lips like a hidden secret you can’t quite make out. You give as good as you get, trying to show him without words just how much you care about him, how willing you were to give up your life for him, for this. 

‘I never thought I’d get to do that again,’ you admit when you separate. ‘That last time you kissed me, I thought that was going to be it.’

‘There’s going to be a lot more in the future,’ he assures you.

The memory of that kiss comes back to you, and what had happened just before. You look at him curiously, and he quirks an eyebrow.

‘How did you do it? How did you take my pain? And Gabe’s?’ you ask him, and for the first time, you see Theo look...embarrassed? Ashamed?

‘I...I don’t really get it. I just saw him sitting there, pathetic and...dying, and I felt like...in another life, that was me.’ He’s not looking at you, but as he speaks you begin to understand why.

‘He didn’t want any of this. He was just warped, by Monroe, and the Anuk-Ite. He’d been normal before, just another kid. But he got all wrapped up in this, and did things he probably didn’t want to do, and...it just kind of...resonated, I guess?’

Theo looks up then, the look on his eyes imploring you to finish the thought for him, as if the pain of it is too much to even think.

You oblige, of course; anything to take the pain Theo was feeling away from him, as he had done for you. ‘He was like you. The Dread Doctors took you when you were young, and they twisted you up inside. Made you something you didn’t want to be. It was like Gabe was a kindred spirit, or something. And once you realised what had happened to him, you could come to terms with what had happened to you.’

Theo nods. ‘If I could accept him, I could start to accept myself, too. He didn’t deserve that pain. And maybe, maybe neither did I. I just knew then that I could do it. I could take his pain, because he’d helped me start to grapple with my own.’

‘Don’t tell Mason, but I think he was right after all,’ you realise, and Theo looks confused now. ‘He said you couldn’t take pain if you didn’t care - but you had to care about yourself, had to accept yourself, flaws and darkness and all, before you could really care about someone else.’

Theo looks downcast for a second. ‘Does that mean that, deep down, I didn’t care about you?’

You hadn’t thought about that; it was like standing on a precipice, over a deep, dark ravine - if that was true, then it called into question everything you’d experienced with Theo. Was all of it a lie, a lie that Theo had even managed to trick himself into believing? 

No. It wasn’t. You knew what you felt, and you knew what he felt, too.

‘Of course not,’ you tell him softly, and you reach out to stroke the side of his cheek, like you would a wounded animal. ‘You’ve said it yourself - the way you feel about me has gotten you through so much already. I don’t think either of us would be standing here, I don’t think anything would have gone the same way, had you not loved me just as much as I love you. Never doubt that. I know how much you care, even if you’re not aware of it. That’s why you could take my pain. That wasn’t anything to do with Gabe - that was all you.’

He looks up at you then, eyes full of gratitude and a small smile on his lips.

‘Maybe there’s hope for me after all,’ he says, and you shake your head.

‘You don’t need hope. Not anymore.’

You let that sit for a second, let Theo’s small smile spread wider, before turning to more pressing matters. Was there still a fight to be fought?

‘Now, the fact that we’re not all screaming in terror or about to get shot to death by hunters means we won, right? What did I miss?’

Theo laughs then, and it’s your turn to be confused.

‘If you were mad at me for risking my life fighting, just wait until you hear what Scott did.’

As Theo tells you the good news, how Scott had defeated the Anuk-Ite, how the war had fizzled out as soon as it had started without the creature around to induce fear, and how Monroe had managed to escape at the last moment, relief washes over you. It’s over. It’s finally over. And with the bare minimum of casualties. 

When he gets to the part where Scott stabbed out his own eyes, your scream of frustration with your best friend for doing something so reckless and insane rattles the entire building on its foundation; Theo has to stop himself laughing before he can continue, and you swear to punch Scott in the head when you see him next. After you hug him, of course.

By the time Theo has caught you up, the sun is beginning to rise. It’s a perfect metaphor, you think. The night is over, the darkness is behind you, and a new dawn full of opportunities and chances to live your life has arrived. 

And now, with the whole world open to you, what would you choose to do?

*********

The time has come. The decisions have been made, the arrangements arranged. But just because you’re certain of your course of action doesn’t mean you’re not massively nervous about it.

You’ve all gathered in the parking lot of the school for one final goodbye. You, Theo, the pack, and your allies from around the world. It’s time for everyone to go their separate ways - you and Theo included.

Ethan and Jackson are the first to go - their flight back to London is leaving soon, so they need to get to the airport. Ethan waves at you as he drops into the passenger seat of Jackson’s new Porsche (which he’d treated himself to for surviving Beacon Hills for a second time), and you return it with gusto.

Jackson claps you on the shoulder, a genuine smile on his face. You’ve never seen him this happy before, even when he was with Lydia. He’d always been so sardonic and guarded, trying to keep himself safe behind walls of bravado, but now, with Ethan, he seems to be...happy. You know that feeling intimately, you think, squeezing Theo’s hand.

‘I’m glad you found your happiness,’ Jackson says; a little corny, but the sentiment is appreciated. He looks back over his shoulder at Ethan tapping his watch into the rear view mirror to hurry his boyfriend along. ‘It took me a long time to find mine, but I know what it’s like when you do. It’s like...a weight has been lifted. And you can finally be who you want to be. Never let that go.’

‘I won’t,’ you promise him firmly. ‘Maybe we’ll see each other again sooner rather than later.’ He looks over at Theo, who nods too.

‘I don’t know you. But if you hurt them, I swear I’ll come back and strangle you with my tail.’

You think Theo will come back with a sarcastic comment, but instead he just nods again, totally serious. Then Jackson is gone, off to say goodbye to Lydia before clambering into his Porsche and roaring away. You roll your eyes at his retreating car, and catch Lydia dabbing at her own eyes discretely. You look away, and Derek steps up next.

‘I always knew you’d make a good werewolf,’ he admits, and you think back to Deucalion, poor, ill-fated Deucalion, and his similar words. ‘I’d have bitten you a long time ago, but you were with Scott, and...I don’t think things would have turned out quite so well, somehow.’

‘You’re probably right,’ you admit. ‘It was good to see you, Derek. Maybe keep a phone on you from now on? Just in case?’

He grins then, glancing back at Scott. ‘Yeah, I’ve heard that before. I’ll definitely think about it. Be careful, okay?’ His eyes flick to Theo, appraising him, but he seems to pass whatever unspoken test Derek is giving him.

‘You too, Raeken,’ he finally says, giving him one last glance before sloping away. You hope he’ll be okay on his own. You know Derek is capable, but with Monroe still out there, being alone wasn’t the best plan. Still, he was Derek Hale. If he needed help, he knew he could count on you all.

‘Last one, then it’s our turn,’ Theo says as Stiles appears. He grabs you in a tight hug, all arms and legs, and you slap him on the back playfully.

‘Okay, okay, get off Stiles. You’ll ruin my new badass werewolf cred.’ 

‘Too late, I’m famous for completely destroying someone’s reputation with one of my hugs,’ he says matter-of-factly, and you laugh heartily. He manages to extract his gangly limbs from you without breaking something. 

‘I hope you know what you’re doing,’ he says, looking from Theo to you and back. ‘It’s a dangerous world out there.’

‘But with special agent Stiles on the case, I’m sure it’ll be safer than ever,’ you tell him, and he grins goofily. ‘I’ll be okay, Stiles. This feels right. This feels like what I should be doing, and that’s not a feeling I’m familiar with - but I like it, so I’m going to go for it.’

‘I trust you,’ he says. ‘You, on the other hand, have a little way to go.’ He looks at Theo pointedly but, like with Derek, Theo doesn’t look away. 

Instead, he remains impassive as he tells Stiles, ‘I get it. I do. But I’m never going to stop trying to prove myself to you guys. I’ve already proven myself to the person who means the most.’

Stiles’ eyes flick from Theo to you and back, and he narrows them in suspicion, but he finally relents. ‘Don’t make me kick your ass, Raeken. I’ll do it. I swear.’

‘I can kick his ass now, Stiles. You don’t need to worry about that,’ you joke, and Stiles seems happy with that response. He gives Theo a ‘I’m watching you’ gesture with his fingers, pointing at his eyes and Theo in turn, before jumping into a cab and waving as it pulls away, taking him back to his FBI training - and of course, his new mission of keeping an eye on hunter movements without the FBI realising what he’s doing. With Rafael McCall’s help though, you expect that’ll probably be easier than you think.

And now it’s your turn, finally. You step up to your friends, the rest of your pack, who have assembled to see everyone off. Scott, Malia, Lydia, Liam, Mason, and Corey are all here, ready to say their goodbyes. But were you?

‘So much for college,’ you shrug, to an array of sad smiles. ‘But I guess priorities are kind of out of whack with Monroe still out there.’

‘She’s got all of Gerard’s old contacts. She’s not going to just disappear into the shadows, much as we’d like her to,’ Scott sighs. ‘And to be honest, I don’t think any of us could focus on classes, knowing that there are people out there that need our help.’

‘I could,’ Malia says automatically, but Scott gives her his most doleful look and she reconsiders. ‘Okay, maybe I couldn’t. But still, can I start looking for her in Paris?’

You all chuckle at that. But you’re stalling, you know you are. You can’t wait around much longer, or you know you’ll never leave.

‘Okay,’ you say with a deep breath, ‘I guess we’re off too.’

‘Are you sure about this?’ Scott asks. ‘You don’t have to leave just yet. We don’t have to split up.’

‘I know, Scott. But we have to go. Theo and I...it just feels right, right?’ You look to Theo, and he nods in agreement. He’d been oddly quiet this whole time, as if he didn’t feel like he could say goodbye to your friends - as if they weren’t his friends too. He gulps comically, and then addresses them all like he’s giving a prepared speech.

‘We’ve done all we could here. I’ve learned so much, about how to do the right thing, about how to keep people safe. But I don’t think I can do anything else in Beacon Hills. I think it’s time to go out into the world and pass what you’ve taught me on. You guys have all helped me. Now it’s my turn to help other people.’

‘And I’m going with him,’ you add, somewhat unnecessarily.

‘As if you’d do anything else,’ Lydia says with a small smile, her eyes drifting down the road to where both Jackson and Stiles had disappeared.

‘Monroe’s going to be recruiting allies. I think we’re going to need to do the same. We’ll spread the word, let people know that there’s a true alpha out there who could use their help, who can protect them. Your name’s going to be legendary, Scott,’ you tell him, and he blushes. 

That’s why he’s the best person for this job; he cares so much, so deeply, and doesn’t expect anything in return. He doesn’t enjoy leading, which makes him well-suited for it. The figurehead for the supernatural resistance couldn’t be anybody else. 

With knowledge of the supernatural more common than ever now in the wake of the Anuk-Ite and the hunters’ war, the world is a very different place, and changing every day. You needed to ride the wave, get out in front of Monroe’s rhetoric of fear, and make sure that all the supernaturals you could find were ready.

‘Don’t be a stranger,’ Liam says. ‘If you’re in trouble, just call. We’ll all come. You know we will.’

‘Same to you guys,’ you reply. ‘Doesn’t matter where it is, or what it is. You say the word, and Theo and I will be there.’ Theo nods along with you, having lapsed back into taciturn silence.

Malia cocks her head skeptically. ‘Be careful out there. Lone wolves don’t last long on their own.’

‘We’re not alone. We have each other,’ you tell her, gripping Theo’s hand even tighter. ‘And we may be apart, but we’re still a pack. Our friends may have been far away, but when we needed them most, they were there. And we will be too.

‘I guess that’s it then. We’ll be in touch.’ You turn to go, fighting back the tears in your eyes that you know are only seconds away from falling. This is right, you know it is. But it doesn’t make it easy.

‘Just one more thing,’ Scott says, and you stop, one foot in Theo’s truck. He scratches the back of his neck, as if he’s not sure how to phrase this next thought. Eventually, he looks to Theo.

‘I just wanted you to know, that we’re all glad you were around. We all know you’ve changed. We wanted you to know that we’re proud to call you an ally, and a member of the pack, if you want it.’

Theo’s shoulders, which you hadn’t even realised were so tense, sag in relief. He smirks, but there’s no mischief there, just pride, in himself for having finally proven that he belongs. When next he speaks, it doesn’t sound so robotic.

‘That really means a lot, Scott. Thank you. I know I’ll never be able to make up for what I tried to do, all the horrible things I did, but-’

‘Consider it forgotten,’ Scott tells him with finality, looking around his friends for confirmation, which they all give without a second’s hesitation, even Malia and Liam. ‘And, there’s something I’d like to give you, if you still want it.’

Theo’s eyes narrow in suspicion, and you gasp slightly as you realise what Scott is suggesting. He steps towards Theo and glows his eyes, the crimson of an alpha visible even in the midday sun.

‘If you still want to be a werewolf, a true werewolf, then I’ll bite you. It’s the least I can do, after what you’ve done for us the last few weeks.’

Theo looks from Scott to you, but this isn’t your decision to make. This is all Theo. He knows that you’ll love him, whatever he decides. He seems to consider it, shock at the offer only visible from the widening of his eyes.

Finally, he speaks.

‘Thanks Scott. The fact that you’re even offering means a lot; more than you even realise. But I...I don’t want it. Not anymore.’

Scott looks at him curiously now, his eyes dimming back to their normal brown; he wasn’t expecting to be rejected.

‘I don’t get it. Isn’t this what you wanted? Isn’t this why you left?’

Theo looks at you then, but not with accusation. He knew you’d share things with Scott - he was your best friend, after all. Then he addresses Scott, and the rest of the pack.

‘It’s taken me a long time; and a lot of thinking. But for the first time, probably in forever, I know who I am. I’m Theo Raeken. I’m the first chimera. I’ve killed people, and made terrible decisions. I’m stubborn, arrogant, and probably the most messed up person you’ve ever met.

‘But I’m also strong, and dedicated, and I know what my weaknesses are. And I know how to work hard to fix them. I’m never going to stop trying to be better than I was. And I think, because you guys trust me, and because I’ve got the best person in the world to keep me grounded,’ he adds, looking to you once more, ‘I’m going to get there. And I don’t need to be a werewolf in order to do that. Not anymore. I’m happy being a chimera.’

The silent tears that you didn’t even know had finally begun to stream down your cheeks are full of happiness. That’s your boyfriend. That’s the person you’ve chosen to fall in love with. And you couldn’t be more proud.

‘Your past informs who you were, but it doesn’t define who you’re going to be,’ says Lydia, summing it all up with the practised ease of someone used to writing college essay conclusions.

Scott nods in understanding. ‘Okay, sure. I get it. I’m glad you feel that way. And the offer’s still open, if you ever change your mind. You’re always welcome in Beacon Hills, and in our pack.’

‘Thank you, Scott. All of you.’ Theo looks around at the pack, and is greeting by warm, welcoming smiles - something you never thought you’d see on their faces when directed at him. After everything, after all of his trials and tribulations, it looks as though Theo has finally earned his place. 

And with that he clambers up into the driver’s seat of the truck; you join him, tears still making their way down your face. He looks over at you, his most genuine smile beaming, as he guns the engine and the pair of you leave the parking lot, heading towards adventures unknown.

The destination wasn’t really that important; your recruitment drive was going to take you all over. You were planning on hitting up nearby towns first, to see if you can find any trace of Monroe. There were still remnants of other packs that hadn’t been totally wiped out by the Anuk-Ite and Monroe’s forces, so they were a good place to start. The hardest part was this first step - leaving Beacon Hills, leaving your friends.

You look back over your shoulder, out of the rear view window, and see them still assembled, waving as you depart. You know you’ll see them again, but this feels like an ending. One chapter of your life is over, and another is about to begin.

You lean over to Theo, wiping the tears from your eyes as you do so.

‘Hey.’

‘What’s up? Did you forget something?’

'No, no. I just wanted to tell you that I love you. Every part of you. Everything that you are, I love it all.’

'I love you, too. I’ve loved you since the first moment I saw you, through everything I did. I loved you when I was in that hole, and when I was trapped in the Wild Hunt, and every other time I was away from you. Loving you helped get me here. And loving you is what’ll get me through the rest of our lives together.’

‘You mean that?’

‘You’re stuck with me now,’ he says slyly, and you lean over to kiss him.

‘I wouldn’t want it any other way.’

You leave Beacon Hills, for what could possibly be the last time. Your life with the pack, your transformation into a supernatural creature yourself, and your relationship with Theo had brought you this far, and they would propel you forward into the future too.

Theo Raeken; the one you loved. The one that loved you. The one that would face any challenge by your side and would never leave you again. And as you sit in his truck, one hand in his, you know that this is right. This is where you are meant to be.

*********

Rain lashes across the rooftops like shards of glass, shattering on impact and chilling you to the bone. The moon shines through the dark stormclouds, a disc of silver above you, a constant companion through the night. Your feet pound on the roofs as you run, leaping between buildings and landing with practised ease.

Your other constant companion is Theo, of course, matching your every step; his amber eyes glow in the darkness, identical to yours. His hair is longer, wilder than ever, and a light stubble dusts his cheeks. You’re not sure if he’s chosen to look like this or if he doesn’t pay much attention to his outward appearance, but he looks older, more mysterious now. It sets your heart beating even faster - but there would be time for that later. Right now you had a target, and a job to do.

You reach the edge of the next rooftop and look down below you, eyes glinting in the gloom. The building across from you is also occupied, but by a group of six hunters instead of supernatural allies. They’re all dressed in army fatigues and seem to be buying weapons from a shady looking merchant, a briefcase of samples open in front of him. All of the guns look deadly, and there’s no way you want them falling into the hands of those who mean harm to your kind. At least your tip had turned out to be accurate, so you weren’t running around in the rain for nothing.

‘You ready?’ Theo asks, and you give him your best impression of his smirk. This was going to be easy.

You both leap off of the roof in tandem, flipping over forwards and landing with your knees bent, claws extended, and fangs poking over the edge of your lips. You curl them into a snarl and roar at your enemies, who turn to face the noise.

The merchant immediately cuts and runs, shutting his case of weapons and disappearing down a nearby fire escape. He’s a problem to deal with another time. For now, the six hunters turn the weapons they already own on you, and bullets begin to fly.

Instantly you and Theo are darting away, acutely aware of the other’s position on the roof even as you separate, moving between the bullets and the raindrops in a deadly dance towards your foes.

You find yourself in front of one of the hunters before you even realise how fast you’ve moved. You plant your hands on the ground and kick upwards, driving your foot into his chin. He flies backwards, gun falling to the side as he hits the roof and crumples.

Another one rushes you to the side and you spin on your heel, scything your claws through the air and slicing across his chest. It won’t kill him, but it’ll sting like a bitch and it’s enough to knock him off balance. You kick him square in his fresh new wounds and he too falls backwards, right into a waiting Theo who drives a knee into the back of his head and then tosses him to one side. Perfect synergy.

Theo glances at you, smirking around his fangs as he tackles two of the other hunters before they can reload their empty weapons. You spring toward him as he rises, and he grabs your hand in mid-flight, spinning you back on yourself so that you catch yet another hunter with a clothesline on your return trip.

The final hunter looks at his fallen friends, panic setting in on his face. He drops his weapon, hands raised in defeat.

‘Please, please don’t kill me. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it, please…’ he whimpers, and you give him a nasty look, glancing sideways at Theo as if contemplating which horrible manner of torture to exact on the man. Of course that’s not how you do things, but the hunter doesn’t need to know that.

Your eyes glow once again as you advance on the man, and he closes his own eyes, waiting for the final blow that never comes. Slowly, he opens one eye and looks up at you, your face now inches away from his.

‘Run. Tell you friends; hunting supernaturals is wrong. We’ve never done anything to you. We protect you from the things you can’t protect yourself from. The demons, the spirits, the shapeshifters that really do want to kill you.’

You’re almost astounded by the man’s courage as he manages to whisper, ‘But...but Monroe...she said…-’

‘-Monroe’s an idiot, who preys on people’s fear of the unknown. You shouldn’t listen to her. If we were anything like she says we are, do you really think the rest of your buddies would be unconscious, instead of dead?’ Theo interrupts. ‘Get out of here. Spread the word. Scott McCall’s pack is growing, and she can’t win. Not against all of us. Hell, we shouldn’t even be fighting at all.’

The man whimpers again before looking to you. You flash your eyes and he finally snaps, fleeing back into the building and down the stairs. You listen in amusement to the sound of his heartbeat racing as he flees the scene, hopefully to pass on your message and probably to find a change of underwear.

‘That went well,’ Theo observes, looking around at your fallen enemies. ‘Shame we couldn’t catch the gun merchant, but there’s always next time. We did good tonight. What’d you say we…’ Theo sneaks over and puts his hands around your waist, dipping his head so that it rests on your shoulder, ‘...go home and celebrate?’

‘That crappy motel isn’t really home, but I like the way you think, Raeken,’ you tell him, looking up at him out of the corner of your eye. Unfortunately, your phone buzzes in your pocket and ruins the moment.

‘It’s Scott,’ you say, checking the new message. ‘He needs us.’

‘Then I guess celebrations are on hold for now,’ Theo agrees. You expect him to release you from his embrace, but instead he moves closer. ‘But first…’

And so, surrounded by the unconscious bodies of hunters, Theo kisses you. Thunder bursts around you as your lips collide, and lightning flashes so bright that it illuminates your vision even through your closed eyelids. It’s a familiar feeling now, Theo’s mouth on yours, but it’s never the same twice, subtly changed by the circumstances and your feelings at the time. It’s always an experience, and never an unpleasant one, enhanced as it is by your supernatural senses.

You place one hand on his cheek, rough to the touch now thanks to his newly acquired stubble. It had been months since you left Beacon Hills, and you had both changed so much, physically and mentally. 

Constant fighting had given you a lust for life that you’d never had previously. You’d faced death before, but never so regularly - Monroe’s reach had extended further and faster than you’d expected, and having to live life on the edge made every moment precious. You loved harder, stronger, fiercer than ever.

You were both faster, more powerful - an unstoppable werewolf/chimera team to be reckoned with, and your reputation as Scott’s staunchest allies reached nearly as far and wide as his own. Supernaturals knew that if you were around they were in safe hands, and Monroe’s hunters had fled from the sight of you more than once - tonight wasn’t as rare an occurrence as Monroe would like to think.

But the war continued. For every victory, there was a loss; for every arms deal that you broke up, there was a pack you found slaughtered, and there was no end in sight; you would never give up, though. You would never stop fighting. Because that’s what Scott would do. That’s what Scott was doing. It’s been a while since you’ve seen him - you wonder if he’ll even recognise you now. Or if you’ll recognise him.

‘Much as I could stand here and do that all night,’ you say, one hand flat on Theo’s chest having spun in his arms while you were kissing, ‘Scott wouldn’t text us if it wasn’t urgent.’

‘Just one more thing,’ he says, and slides a hand into his pocket. When he withdraws it, his fist is clenched tight and he actually looks sheepish for a change, his usually unshakeable air of confidence dissipating like the rain hitting the rooftop.

Your brow furrows in confusion. ‘Theo, what are you doing?’

‘I want to do this; it seems a little silly, but I think it’s the right thing to do. I had a whole speech prepared, for later tonight after...well, what we aren’t going to get to do now. About how much I love you, and how much you mean to me, and all of the stuff I’ve told you so many times before. We’ve already said, more than once, that we’d spend the rest of our lives together. Now I just want to make it official.’

Your eyes widen in shock as you realise what he’s suggesting, and his hand opens to reveal twin bands of silver. 

'Marry me?’ he asks simply, and his expression is like that of a small child asking for something he doesn’t feel as though he deserves but wants anyway.

You’re the one that doesn’t feel as though you deserve this. You’ve been living a life you never thought you’d live in a million years, with a person you didn’t think could ever exist, a person who makes you feel so happy and complete that you...you don’t even know what to say. The thought had never even crossed your mind, you’d been afraid to let it because of how dangerous your lives were now; but it makes perfect sense. Theo was right - you never wanted to leave his side, nor he yours. So, of course, the answer was obvious.

‘Yes. Yes, Theo. Nothing would make me happier.’

His face brightens instantly, a shining beacon in the darkness of the night, and he slips one of the rings onto your finger. You take the other from him, doing the same. You hold the ring up to the moonlight and it sparkles brightly. It feels like it’s where it belongs, as if you’ve always worn it.

‘I do love you, you know,’ he says, and kisses you once more. The hands that now held engagement rings tangle together passionately, like links in a chain to illustrate your physical connection as well as your emotional one.

‘I love you, too,’ you tell him. ‘Now, let’s go tell our friends the good news. Race you to the truck!’

And you take off across the rooftops again, pouncing and lunging, your boyfri-no, your fiancé, bounding along next to you. The most important person in your life, who had chosen to spend the rest of his with you. 

How far you had both come, you think as you run, your mind drifting up and away on the euphoria that Theo’s proposal had instilled within you.

Second chances were hard to come by. They had to be fought for; had to be earned. But they were worth the fight. They were worth every second, every hardship you had to endure to get them, because they could open up a world of possibilities that would lead to more happiness than you could ever imagine.

Theo had gotten another chance. A chance to live his life, to be the person he should have been, rather than what the world had made him into, and he had succeeded despite every temptation to fall back into his old habits, and almost the entire world telling him he couldn’t be anything more than he was before.

You had gotten another chance too. Becoming a werewolf, falling in love with Theo, had literally changed your life. You finally felt comfortable in your own skin, and you knew what your place in the world was - right here, with the man you loved, fighting for the ideals that your best friend inspired in everyone he met.

And now, you were working to give others another chance. Other werewolves, other supernaturals, who were being unjustly persecuted by Monroe and her hunters - they deserved to live their lives as happy and as free as you and Theo did.

Because everyone deserves another chance. Another chance to do something amazing with their lives, something that makes them feel proud, and fulfilled, and happy. Another chance to find that special someone to share it with. Being a werewolf, or a chimera, or any other kind of supernatural didn’t mean you weren’t entitled to that second chance - if anything, it often meant you needed one more than ever.

And now, together, you and Theo were proving that to the world. You had both been given another chance at happiness, and together you were going to seize it with everything you had. And that love between you, a love no longer obscured by darkness, would get you through whatever else life had to throw at you.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And there we have it. 40 chapters later, and we're done. If you've read this far, thank you so much, and I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. 
> 
> There were times when I had no idea how Theo's story was going to end, times I thought he was going to get killed off, times I thought he was going to do something irredeemable (and let's be fair, killing Scott was pretty damn near to the mark), but I hope I managed to do his redemption arc justice, and that the development of both the relationship between Theo and the reader and of the reader from the shy, insecure character that they started out as to the strong, powerful one that they end up came across as realistic.
> 
> This is the longest thing I've ever written. I've spent the last two years writing this, on and off, and it's super surprising to me that I've managed keep it going, but I am very proud of myself for having seen it through to the end. I think that dedication stands as a testament to how strongly Teen Wolf and the character of Theo affected me as a viewer, and I wouldn't have been able to write something like this if the show wasn't as powerful and emotional as it is. So thank you Teen Wolf, thank you Cody Christian for bringing Theo Raeken to life, thank you to those who read this, and I hope whatever I write next is just as interesting to you.


End file.
